


of roses & hello

by heartslogos



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Character, Gen, Platonic Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-29 16:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 48
Words: 61,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7691092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartslogos/pseuds/heartslogos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Do you think?)the<br/>i do,world<br/>is probably made<br/>of roses & hello:</p><p>(of solongs and,ashes)</p><p>- <i>into the strenuous briefness</i>, e.e. cummings</p><p>Stories ft. unnamed f!lavellan and iron bull</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Could you be happy here,” He asks her late at night, “With me?”

She feels good next to him, the warmth of her small body next to his. His arm is around her, hand curved over the back of her small thigh, her hair spread out over his arm, face pressed against the side of his chest.

He feels her stir a little, shifting and opening up - cheek dragging against his skin and catching on scars -

“What?”

Because he’s thought about it - her and him. After all of this, when she wins.

Bull guesses he should probably think of what to do if she’d _doesn’t_ win. But he’s pretty sure that’s a future no one really wants to explore or think on too deeply. He knows he doesn’t. That is one eventuality he doesn’t want to have to plan for, doesn’t want to be responsible for. That’s one future where he wants to leave the surviving to everyone else: the planning, the regrouping, the drawn out strangulation of inevitability and defeat.

He doesn’t want to think about a future where she’s gone, long before her time should be up.

Dorian and Lavellan sometimes share secret and shared looks about that future they saw. But they don’t talk about it: the details of what transpired. He knows that Cassandra was there. Vivienne was there. Varric was there.

And it was ugly.

Name one defeat that wasn’t.

Bull doesn’t know where he would be in that future. Doesn’t want to know. He knows, ideally, where he’d _want_ to be. But that’s of no help to anyone.

What Bull does think about is the future they’re going to win. What happens next in that world?

“I said,” He repeats, hand slowly closing over his stomach, blunt nails catching over the blanket, “Could you be happy here, with me?”

“I am happy,” She says, voice slurring with sleep, “And I am with you.”

“That’s not the same thing,” Bull says. “You know that isn’t what I’m asking, either.”

The Anchor is a bright flash that makes Bull narrow his eye as she drags the blanket over her shoulder and curls in deeper against his side. He pulls her close, his arm perfectly curved and matching the spiral of her body as she slowly draws a leg over his, adjusting the tilt of her chin on his chest. Her breath comes out careful and steady. He can feel the shift of her bone on his palm. He feels her playing with the tooth against her chest, the soft press of her breasts against his side and the movement of her fingers as she runs the pads of her fingertips over the bone, tangling the string and untangling it over and over.

Her other hand traces small pictures onto his skin with her fingertips. He once thought they were words. Letters. Dalish ones.

(He asked Dalish, tracing them as best as he could into her palm. Dalish had frowned -

“If those are words,” Dalish said, “They’re probably specific to her clan. Or maybe she studied a different part than I did. I don’t know them.”)

“When I am with you I’m happy,” She says, slowly, carefully. Testing the words, testing him, testing their truth.

Bull nods to himself, to her.

Lavellan does not lie.

Not to him.

He runs his fingertips over the sinews of her thigh.

He understands what she means.

He images it, this world where they emerge unscathed and well. He imagines this Thedas, without the threat of Corypheus and the Breach, where the Anchor will not kill her. He imagines her and his Chargers, taking jobs and doing whatever they want whenever they want for whatever purpose they choose. No one to be responsible to but themselves. He images what she’d add to his team and all the things they could do together. The places they could go.

The stories they could make.

The secrets they could share.

The Inquisition will never really end. The Inquisitor will never get to retire.

Even then -

Lavellan is a breeze, a slip of wind between the fingers. Gone even as you feel it cooling your sweat and touching your brow. A kiss already gone.

She is happy here, with him, he doesn’t doubt it. But here - here is the Inquisition. Here is Skyhold. Here is at the end of the world as they know it. With him is in his arms where she feels safe from what lies outside this door.

What Bull wants to know is - into the sunset, laughter at their heals, scars closing over, wounds cleaned, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, the sky full and whole, and life echoing past their fingertips, no rules, no limits, no one in control but them.

What Lavellan can tell him is this - once more, into the Breach, scars fresh and wounds being licked, tonight and dawn, the sky cracked and blistering, and life threatening to slip away, all the limits quickly drawing closer and closer, no one in control at all.

Lavellan belongs no where, with no one, with nothing.

It is something that’s kept her up at night, in the morning, at all hours. It’s something that’s been wearing her heart down for months.

She will never be happy in one place, with one person. She’s put too much of herself into too many people. Parts of her scattered all over the place. She goes to visit each part whenever she feels lonely without it. Then she goes on and on and on. Like tending a garden that spans different places.

As long as all the parts of her are under Skyhold’s roof, she will be there. She’ll be happy.

But when this is over - when they all leave? Go back to wherever they came from? That’s when things will change.

That’s when Lavellan will get unhappy.

She will try to stay with one. But she will want to find the rest of her pieces. An endless cycle of searching. She can’t be tied down. It’d kill her. Probably.

Cripple her. Definitely.

Lavellan settles close against his side, eyes sliding shut as she returns to sleep. Bull closes his own eye and follows suit.

Enough for tonight. There will be other nights. Other times.

For now there is this -

She’s alive. She’s sleeping in his bed. She is wearing half of their tooth.


	2. Chapter 2

People have been staring - this isn’t new. What _is_ new is the overtone to it. They’ve been staring and whispering and giving each other looks the entire time the Inquisition has been in the area.

Bull thought it was a challenge at first - dissent.

After a few minutes, he caught on, knows better. It’s gossip.

Cole had gone off to wherever it is he goes when he doesn’t feel like being Cole the second they got within seeing distance of the little group of buildings, Solas made a face and politely excused himself to do whatever it is in the country side that’s presumably not fucking Fade spirits, leaving Bull and Lavellan to go and make friendly with the locals.

Apparently it isn’t worth Inquisition effort to go and make an outpost near here.

The boss has been doing her thing, saying her _hello_ ’s and _how are you_ ’s to anyone with enough balls to break out of their insular mind sets to come close, and asking about unusual activity in the area. Bull isn’t here to talk, he’s here to look dumb and catch what she doesn’t.

He mostly manages to ignore the extra attention - focusing on trying to ferret out the more important dangers - when he makes the questionable move of reaching out and resting a hand on the back of Lavellan’s neck, guiding her back onto the path when he notices her attention start to stray towards a flower growing in between a pair of houses. He squeezes the back of her neck and gently draws her back onto a straight line in the general direction of the center of the town - does it even count as a town? - and what might be an inn or the meeting hall.

That’s when the gossip, the whispers and the stares, fucking explode out of every window, door, crate, and barrel.

 _Ah_ , he thinks with a snort, letting his hand fall from her neck - thumb brushing against the soft silk at the nape, fingertips trailing over the hardened leather over her spine - _there it goes_.

He can almost feel the whispers following them through the buildings, building itself up as they check into the local inn - if four rooms on the second floor of a dubious looking shack with a straw roof counts as an inn - and Lavellan waves her hand - not the Anchor hand - and says, “No. One room is fine, ser.”

(Because Cole doesn’t sleep and if he ever feels like coming back he’ll probably end up just standing and watching them in a corner like the weird kid he is. And Solas wouldn’t be caught dead here. He’s probably already made some sort of wilderness-survival tent out of three leaves and a stick.)

It’s like every single eye in this backwater’s suddenly trained on him and her.

Bull idly wonders if the Boss has noticed. He kind of hopes she hasn’t.

Which, of course, means she has.

As they walk up the creaky stairs - Bull has to go in sideways and crouch low to fit, also suck in his gut. Even Lavellan has to shrink herself down a little, walking on the tips of her toes - Lavellan lowers her voice to the edge of his hearing.

“Why are they staring at us like that?”

Bull grunts because she almost just smacked him with her staff, and because his sword is stuck in the stairwell. “Go on.”

She glances back at him, almost his her head with own staff - makes a face of complete and utter bafflement at that, which makes her look a little cross eyed but it works for her - and goes to find whichever room has the same matching mark as the one on their wooden tablet. Not a key. A wood square that they’re supposed to hang on a hook on their door.

The so-called inn-keep had to explain that one three times.

He kept looking at Bull for help but Bull just stood there and then casually rested his hand on the back of her nape again, fingers encircling her thin throat, thumb tracing the marks he knows by heart over the side of her neck.

Everyone knows who’s side he’s on.

When Bull eventually manages to get the sword through the stairway and the narrow hallway and then into the room - there’s actual straw on the floor, falling from the rafters. And there’s a bed that might fit half of him and all of her if she curls up on top of him. Also a tiny window to take in the scenery. Dead grass. Nice. - Lavellan is trying to get her staff to stand against the wall, except it keeps sliding on the straw. She kicks some to the side before eventually giving up and just lying it down on the floor.

“Don’t let me forget it’s there,” She says. “It blends in.”

Bull snorts because it does. He hands her his sword and she puts it down next to her staff.

“Now you can’t forget,” Bull says.

Lavellan grins, then her expression turns back to curious and she lowers her voice because he’s pretty sure the walls are made of actual paper and Lavellan probably noticed that quick.

“Why were they all staring at us?”

Bull sits down on the bed it makes an alarmingly loud sound of protest for something that looks older and grayer than he is. He wonders how badly his back would hurt if he just slept on the floor.

“They want to know how I fuck you,” Bull says.

Lavellan blinks, “You don’t.”

“Yeah, but they don’t know that,” Bull replies.

Lavellan moves to sit on the bed, but makes a face and seems to think better of it because she takes out a roll of linen from her bag and spreads it on the floor. A square just large enough for her to sit on. Smart move.

Some of the stains on the floor don’t look like water stains.

“What do you mean _how_?”

“They can’t figure out how I’d fit,” Bull explains, “And they want to know because that’s how they come in backwater pools like this. All gossip goes back to dicks and tits.”

Lavellan bubbles with laughter that she tries to muffle in the bend of her elbow. Bull grins at her.

“Your cock can’t be bigger than a baby,” Lavellan says, “They do know what comes out of a woman, right?”

“I dunno, maybe they think babies grow in fields,” Bull says.

“Out of cabbages, you think?” Lavellan asks, because of course she noticed the weird amount of cabbages as they were passing by. Especially considering that her stag wanted to eat half of them.

“Maybe,” Bull says, reaching out and ruffling her hair, “You should ask and find out. Do babies come from cabbages here?”

“I’m not going to ask that,” Lavellan says, “That’s terrible.”

Lavellan pauses. “It would be really mean if I pretended to make a prophecy about babies in cabbages, wouldn’t it?”


	3. Chapter 3

“Control your woman!”

Bull laughs so hard his guts hurt, and when his guts stop hurting he hurls the speaker by the neck head-long into a mass of Inquisition soldiers and Chargers.

“She isn’t _my_ woman,” Bull says, and this is how he wants to remember her, them, all of this, all the time. Blood pumping, no one’s life really on the line because this is a fight between dragonlings and nugs and everyone knows who wins that kind of fight, the weather good, and laughter and singing all around because compared to what they normally have to fight this is a fucking stroll through an Orlesian garden.

Lavellan is a wild thing, leaping like one of her sacred halla, body close and tight, staff lit up like a torch made of lightning behind her as she jumps over bodies fallen and falling, over swords lifted high, clearing the highest obstacles like she’s skipping rope. The Anchor flashes brilliant white-green and she’s learned to bend that thing to her will just like she’s bent everyone else they know.

Her hair is a smearing ink splotch that blurs through the air before disappearing into the masses. He can’t hear her from her but he imagines the quick and hard thump of her heart against her breastbone and the near-silent sounds of air between her lips in between spells and knives.

Everyone thinks mages can’t do anything but cast spells.

(Maybe that’s true of some of the soft things raised in the southern Circles. Not true of the proud things in golden towers of the North. Not true of Pavus.

Not true of the narrow things form the wild dark. Not true of Lavellan.)

Lavellan can handle a knife just as well as any of his guys, and whatever flaws she had were worked out by increased proximity with Cole and Skinner. The only difference between Lavellan using a knife and Sera or Krem or Grim or Cassandra is that no one expects it.

At the end of the day, the bite of a knife is just as life-ending as the strike of lightning.

“And she’s _not a woman_ ,” Bull says, living the feeling of his shoulders rotating as he hefts his sword high, “She’s _the Boss_.”

As if she heard him - she couldn’t have, doesn’t matter how good her ears are and how not subtle he is, she can’t have possibly heard him - her head pops up and her eyes scan the field until they land on him. Her face breaks into a wicked smile and she holds up the Anchor and winks.

Bull turns his back, bringing his sword down with all the weight of himself and his laughter and guts and glory, taking everything in his path down with it as Lavellan unleashes a crackling flood of green.

Once, Bull would have been disturbed, maybe even disgusted, at the feeling of the Anchor washing over his skin.

He isn’t.

It’s _her_ and it’s the Inquisition. It’s this.

Everyone in the Inquisition knows that the Anchor is hers, theirs, safe. A tool, a gift, a weapon. And it’s theirs to aim at whoever they want to fuck up.

And whoever’s on the other side knows that, too.

Whoever was fool enough to be looking directly at Lavellan falls, blinded.

And those who were smart enough to not look are scared shitless by the unfamiliar feeling of the Anchor moving over them to think.

Sometimes Bull worries that he’s becoming what every other Tal-Vashoth is. A mindless, unworthy killing _thing_. Especially in fights like these - nothing really on the line. Fun.

What’s supposed to bring him back? What keeps him from going and going and going?

The answer is her. How could it be anything but her?

Now, this time for real, he does hear her because when he wasn’t looking she’s come up behind him.

He feels her fingers scramble over the sweat-slick skin on his back, grasping at the leather straps, as she pulls herself onto him, climbing over him and prepping for a jump.

Bull can hear the near-silent huff of her laughter, breathless and excited.

(“ _Don’t tell anyone I said this,_ ” Lavellan says, bouncing on her heels around their small tent before flopping down next to him, head on his thigh as she grins up at him, “ _But sometimes I really like fighting shems. I’ve never been able to fight shems before.”)_

Bull turns and just manages to clip her throat with the corner of his mouth as her small hands brace herself on his large shoulders. Lavellan is bowed over him, close like a large and bony bird before. Her teeth are a wicked thing as she smiles down at him. Bull grins back at her and pushes at the same time she does.

He straightens as she kicks against his back, flipping back into the crowd with a burst of cold as she skates through warm bodies.

She shrieks a sound that belongs on something feathered and piercing, before lighting up with lightning again, staff creating streaks of light - like ribbons - as she spins it, still rotating with frost.

Bull grins and lets out his own bellow - something that belongs on something scaled and bigger than even he is - and pulls on that core of rage and power and lust that builds in this machine of emotions and violence and wild dark inside of him.

They are all their own weapons and they shine best when used together.

He hears Krem laugh in the distance and Bull makes words with the wild dark -

“ _Chargers!”_

And from all around him - and in the distance, faintly and sparkling, _Lavellan_ \- he gets the response, “ _Horns up!_ ”

And then singing that matches the sound of swings and crunches and gasps for air and sweat.

This. Exactly this. Fucking perfect.

This is how he wants to remember. To be remembered.

If everything goes to shit - and it won’t - and when he gets old and senile and gray - he won’t, he’ll probably die first - this is how he wants it to be.

Him and her and them and this.


	4. Chapter 4

Bull doesn’t really think much of the fact that Lavellan is young and Dalish - no, he thinks about both of those things a lot. Because you can’t help but notice that she’s young. It shows in everything she does. She looks for approval and advice and reassurance in unfamiliar situations, and even familiar ones. She sticks close to the people she thinks are more experienced than her. And she’s Dalish. Accent and tattoos and different way of spell casting and dressing and all.

It’s mostly he doesn’t really think about the two of those facts _together_ at once.

And then one day when he’s finishing a walk around Haven, he sees the would-be-Herald of Andraste sitting next to a logging stand and petting what looks like - from this distance - either a weirdly colored nug or an unusually large rabbit, while singing something similar to one of Dalish’s strange songs.

Sitting there next to the tall and sparsely scattered trees in her shabby coat and dull - borrowed, he knows, because he’s never seen any Dalish elf dress like that - clothes with that large - nug, he sees now - in her arms while singing in a near whisper, she looks really _young_ and really out of place.

Bull stops and watches her for a while.

Is it his business to go and check on her? Is it his duty?

There’s a definite line between bodyguard and babysitter, and he figures she has enough of those. And there’s yet another line between both of those and captor.

Lavellan takes that decision out of his hands because she suddenly looks up, eyes fixed on him. The nug slides out of her arms as she stares at him, frozen. She looks caught between running or trying to disappear.

Bull awkwardly raises a hand - aside from those initial few conversations, they haven’t really spoken much. Bull is pretty sure that he may have spooked her when talking about the Qun. - and says in his best approximation of what Dalish taught him, “Andaran ati’shan.”

Lavellan’s face lights up and he knows he’s right.

Bull remembers being young. He remembers being a new fighter, a new soldier. He remembers how home-sick he got, how much he missed the familiarity of the routines and rules of the Qun, the predictability and logic of it. He remembers missing the form of Qunlat and how easy it was, compared to how confusing the rest of the languages of Thedas were.

Some days he was fucking dying for something familiar, something to grasp onto. To make things make sense again.

Shock and joy light up her face.

Something easier than homesickness and lighter than nostalgia runs underneath his skin as she stands up, sudden and eager. Her face is bright and her breath is light, soft -

“Dirth an’elven?” She looks eager, excited, and incredibly hopeful. Bull hates to disappoint her.

“Sorry,” Bull says, scratching his nails over the back of his scalp, feeling at stubble and muscle and bone. “I’m not really fluent. And according to Dalish - uh, _my_ Dalish, the one who runs with the rest of the Chargers, she’s an elf, too - I have a really shit accent.”

Lavellan’s face falls and she awkwardly folds in on herself, rubbing her arms.

“Oh,” Lavellan says.

“You okay?” Bull asks, “Awful far from Haven.”

Lavellan mutters something, face turned down and away. He doesn’t quite catch it.

“What was that?”

“I said,” Lavellan repeats a little louder this time, “It looks pretty.”

She turns and looks him in the eye.

“The Breach,” She clarifies, “It looks pretty.”

Bull holds her gaze. It’s like a test.

Like when you look into the eyes of a bear, or a wolf, or a wyvern from across a field or forest glade. When you look into the eyes of a wild thing. There’s a moment of silence, of tension, where you know nothing. Where it is you and the other animal. Neither of you know what’s going to happen next. There’s just this tension, this uncertainty, where time stretches into something weird and infinite.

Bull looks to the Breach. It looks different here, in comparison to when he saw it from the Storm Coast. Here in this nothing but white and white and more white and blue, it looks terrifying. Awe inspiring.

“Yeah,” Bull says. He’s afraid of it. Of what it means. The chaos it brings into this world. Bull knows enough of himself to know this. But he can admit - the Breach, whatever it is, exactly. It’s beautiful. Like the way dragons are beautiful - and shit on fire, and the look down a mountain, and a storm at distant sea. “It is, huh?”

Whatever the test was, he must pass, because when he looks away, Lavellan’s hands are at her sides and she doesn’t look as closed off or nervous anymore.

“Who taught you to speak?” She asks.

“Dalish,” Bull answers, “Again, the person, not the group.”

“What else do you know?” She asks, abruptly sitting back down in the snow, much more open and - somehow, he doesn’t know much about her yet aside from what he’s observed of her through battles and what he’s gathered from their few conversations and the couple of times he’s managed to get an eye on her while she runs around Haven - much more _herself_ than she was even with the nug.

Bull takes this as an invitation to go over to her and awkwardly sit down on a stump. He rubs the palm of his hand over the back of his neck.

“Fenedhis,” Bull says and Lavellan laughs. Bull grins. “The curse words are always the easiest to learn.”

“And the naughty ones,” Lavellan adds on, “The ones you aren’t supposed to use.”

“It’s because you aren’t supposed to use them that they’re so good,” Bull says.

She grins at him and he smiles back, like sharing a secret.

“Has your Dalish been with you long?” She asks, and they get to talking from there. Not like that kind of tense not-exactly back and forth at Haven. This is nice. Casual. The kind of stuff that helps you really get to know a person.

It’s light talk. Giving without giving.

Relaxing.

Bull loses a bit of time sitting there, exchanging stories with her.

Lavellan is the one to break it when she glances at the sky and squints.

“It’s later than I thought,” She says, standing and brushing the seat of her pants. He gestures for her to go ahead of him, and she nods, pauses as she turns to leave. And then, awkwardly - but carefully, slowly -, says, “ _Panahedan_.”

Then smiles, a soft and not-quite mischievous thing that kicks bull right up the ass with surprise.

Bull laughs as she crosses the snow with quick bounds, racing off over the snow towards Haven.

Clever bas.


	5. Chapter 5

“Chief.”

Bull looks up, away from his report. He supposes it isn’t really a report, anymore. There’s no one to really report back to. It’s more habit. Like a diary or journal, but less - touchy. Bull could always start giving reports to Leliana or Cullen or Lavellan. Doesn’t think he will though.

“Krem,” Bull says, “What’s wrong? Someone spit in your beer again?”

“Wait, _again_?” Krem blinks, looks disgusted then shakes his head. “No. This isn’t about - we’ll be having words about that later. But no. We need to talk.”

“If this is about adding another rock to the other end of that stick you call a weapon, the answer is still when you can lift Grim _and_ Rocky at the same time in each hand,” Bull answers.

“ _Bull_ ,” Krem says and Bull _really_ looks at him. Krem looks serious. Solemn. And nervous.

These three things are unfamiliar enough on Krem that they cause Bull’s interest to perk up in sharp ways. All three are unfamiliar enough on Krem at the same time that they make the rest of him sit up and pay attention.

Bull pushes the parchment aside with the back of his hand, clearing the table in front of him.

“Aclassi,” Bull says and Krem sits across from him, hands folded on the table. “What’s this about?”

“Remember the rules of the Chargers?”

Bull raises an eyebrow, “There are no rules?”

“ _Do you remember the rules of the Chargers_?” Krem repeats, voice strong - feeling things out, urgent.

“I made the rules of the Chargers,” Bull says. “Which one do you mean, Krem? Which one in specific do you want?”

“Don’t shit where you eat,” Krem answers biting out the words. Bull feels both eyebrows raising in surprise. “Chief, we need to know - _is this_ _just another job or not?_ ”

“This?” Bull repeats, not quite understanding the strange need in Krem’s voice. It echoes back to a situation, a time, Bull has trouble placing into context with this one.

“The Inquisition,” Krem clarifies, “One of the rules of the Chargers is to never shit where you eat. Don’t fuck a contract, don’t pick a fight with a contract, don’t breathe wrong in the direction of a contract until it’s over and paid for. Don’t mess around where you can screw it up. What are you doing, Chief? With the Inquisitor? Is that part of the job? Are we still in a job?”

Krem squeezes his hands together and keeps talking. Bull doesn’t stop him.

“Because it doesn’t look like a job, Chief. I mean, to me, at least. I don’t think it is. Call me a fucking greenhorn for getting involved. I guess I am one. I got attached. A lot of us have. I mean, for fuck’s sake, you don’t report back. You - _you left_.”

Bull almost looks away at the way Krem looks him in the eye.

He did leave.

He doesn’t know if he would have, on his own, though. Bull knows what his heart wants. It’s this. But he doesn’t know if the rest of him would have let him have it - if it weren’t for that one hand.

(A hand, steady and a sharp drag back to reality, and a single command issued. It cuts through all the noise. All the unsteadiness.

Bull has been conditioned to obey authority.

Everyone knows who is the authority here.

Bull submits.)

“We - and I mean we. The Chargers. We want to know - we follow your lead. What you do, we do. You’re our example. And the example you’ve been showing us is - not a job,” Krem glances away, “More like. Maker, it’s more like home. We haven’t been in one place working so closely and openly with so many people _ever_. It’s - it’s making it hard for us. A lot of us are starting to see this place as home, these people _our_ people. And yeah, when this ends and you tell us to pick up and go we’d go. No questions asked. But it’d hurt. A lot.”

Krem takes in a breath and Bull feels his hands close together. Because it would hurt, a lot. It hurts just thinking about it. Picking up and walking out those gates with the intention of never coming back. Fuck.

His chest stings and hollows out just thinking about it.

“I know for us hired swords home is supposed to be people, what you can take with you,” Krem continues, “Fuck, we all know that. We’re used to it. But it’s also - to have this space that’s just yours. Only yours. A place you know you can always go back to. That’s. That’s _really tempting_ , Chief. And I’m not going to lie - I think a lot of us want that. And we want that to be here. We want it a lot.”

Krem flattens his hands on the table.

“Is that what this is, Chief? Is the Inquisition the new Chargers base? Do the Chargers answer to the Inquisition? Are we the Inquisition’s swords, now?”

Bull’s first thought is to say _no, the Chargers are the Chargers._

Because - because it’s always been important that the Chargers are independent, never staying in one place too long, working one side too long. But that was because of the Qun’s instructions. Now, _now_ , Bull can choose. They can choose where to go, sides to be on. They can choose their jobs with much more impunity than ever.

It’s a complicated thing.

Are they the Inquisition’s swords?

The Blades of Hesserian are Lavellan’s swords. Pledged to her, and not quite the Inquisition. But not loyal, not truly. Theirs is loyalty made by faith in their Maker and trial by combat. There are those pledged to Lavellan’s name but, still, it is not quite the same.

And to be _the Inquisition’s_ is to be owned, to be tied down, to be placed in a position he’s not sure he’s comfortable with entirely. It means a kind of ending, a kind of restriction that he’s just been released from - been broken from.

And again - to leave all this behind?

He’s not sure he’s strong enough to do that.

With or without a voice of authority telling him to do so.

“Krem!”

They both startle, jerking into alertness and out of the heavy silence that’s fallen over them. Lavellan’s feet thunder down the stairs as she calls for Krem.

Lavellan appears in the stairway, leaning over the railing and looking around before her eyes fall on them.

“There you are!” She gasps, “Come here, _quickly, Krem! Come here!_ Wait - why aren’t you in your chair? You aren’t in your chair!”

Krem’s face fixes into something polite and easy and - good.

“Despite what you may think, your worship, the chair and I aren’t actually joined at the asscheek.”

Lavellan’s eyes slit as she laughs quietly before she flings her arm out for him, beckoning him over.

“Never mind, _come on!_ He’s here! The Inquisitor! Come look before he disappears again!”

“You?” Bull raises an eyebrow.

“No, not the Inquisitor,” Lavellan says, “The _Inquizitor_. Zed.”

She emphasizes the buzzing sound.

“The _who_?” Bull turns back to Krem, who’s looking at Lavellan with an easy smile and - natural. Just natural.

Bull understands, now. The way Krem spoke earlier, why it reminded him of then.

Validation.

Krem wanted to know, to be acknowledged, he wanted to be _claimed_.

Back then Bull claimed him as a man.

Now Krem wants the Chargers to be claimed as Lavellan’s. Skyhold’s. _Home_.

“I’m coming,” Krem says, “I’m coming. Let’s see this _Inquizitor_ then.”

He takes her and Lavellan pulls him up the stairs. Krem’s eyes meet Bull’s as he disappears up.

“ _Think about it_ ,” Krem mouths.

Bull listens to them rise up the stairs, pushing his hearing to follow them.

He has time to think. But he doesn’t know - he doesn’t know what to say here. He closes his eyes and spreads his hand out to the side, catching over the parchment he abandoned earlier.

What does he want?


	6. Chapter 6

It takes them forever to find her. Bull swears that it takes them too long to find her - she should have been found already. And he doesn’t know why he isn’t in the search party.

Lavellan has gone missing again. This time, at least, he knows for a fact that she isn’t buried under a mountain because there are no mountains in the fucking wastes.

There’s sand. Sand as far as you can fucking see. Bull doesn’t know how they lost her.

No, that’s wrong. He knows how.

Because Lavellan went out early this morning to check something out with a group of Inquisition scouts and she was supposed to be back before mid-morning because everyone goes underground into one of the caverns the Inquisition has claimed as theirs to cool down and wait it out until sunset.

She didn’t come back. And Bull was ready to go out there and look, Dorian with him, because between the two of them they know sand and they know heat. But no - and Bull doesn’t know why he listened. He doesn’t know why _Dorian_ listened. Dorian never listens. Bull had no reason to listen.

Bull does not obey _everyone_. He obeys people in power. He obeys people with authority. People he has _given_ authority to.

And those people were not in that underground place with him, telling him no.

They waited. And they waited. And they waited.

And now it is night and cold and Bull doesn’t even know which direction she went in or how far out she went and how much water she had with her.

Did she _have_ any water with her? Or was it just the scouts carrying it for her? What about food? Fuck, let it not be those salted and dried up strips of meat. Let it be water. Let it be something that wouldn’t dry her up like a browned leaf.

“Bull,” Pavus’ voice reaches through to him and Bull grunts vague acknowledgement. Dorian’s hand snaps out and yanks back hard on Bull’s sword harness. “ _Bull_ , listen to me.”

“What?” He snarls, an arm slipping loose from chains that he’s worked hard to keep tight. Tighter still now that he’s been broken from the Qun. No one else will keep him in line, what he knows he is. Everyone will make excuses for him, but no one else will do what he knows has to be done.

“I feel her,” Dorian says, eyes steady and bright, “I feel her.”

“Where?”

Bull turns around, takes Dorian by the shoulders, “Where?”

“I don’t know where just yet, I just _feel her_.”

“Where?” Bull repeats, shaking Dorian as lightly as he can. He has to remember to be careful. He has to remember. “ _Where_?”

Dorian shrugs against his hands, and Bull feels the heat of magic wash over his skin - bright and brief before Bull lets go.

“I’m trying to _tell you Bull_ , I don’t know where just yet. But I’m starting to get a feel for her aura. Get me a mount. Get me a mount so I can fucking _move_ and find her.”

Bull’s mind erases the time between Dorian speaking and Bull handing him the reigns to a dracolisk. It doesn’t matter.

“Closer,” Dorian says, hand to his temple as his eyes squeeze shut. “We’re getting closer.”

“Where? Right? Left?” Bull asks as Dorian turns the dracolisk into a small circle, eyes opening as he spurs the beast into action.

“Just follow me,” Dorian snaps, “Shut up and follow me.”

Bull follows.

He gives Dorian the authority.

He follows, asking Dorian every few pauses of turns - “Closer?”

“Where?”

“Farther?”

“Here,” Dorian says stopping and throwing his arm out to point. Bull stops and throws himself off the poor animal that’s had to bear his weight.

“Where?”

It’s just rocks and sand. No caves that he can see, no structures.

“Wait, just wait a moment - let me get my bearings. It’s not exactly constant. It’s more like a pulse and - _there!_ ”

“Where?” Bull breathes, voice going distant with longing and urgency.

“Down,” Dorian gasps. Flinging his hand downward, “ _Bull, she’s down_.”

“Down?” Bull repeats, confused for a moment before Dorian leaps off of the dracolisk and scrambles onto the sand, digging. Bull falls down next to him and starts moving sound out of the way, yelling over his shoulder for the rest of the scouts that came with them to follow.

They dig. And they dig. And they dig.

“Can you feel it?” Dorian’s voice is close and very far away, broken with heavy breaths. The sand is hot against his hands.

“Yes,” Bull says an uncertain time later. “Yeah.”

Because he can, now. Even a non-mage, a non-Templar, can feel it.

Pulses from the Anchor. It even moves the sand a little.

But the pulses are far apart.

It feels like they’ve been digging forever - sand underneath his nails, underneath his fucking skin. But the sand is cool, now. Untouched by the sun. -  when his forefinger touches against something hard. Smooth. _Warm_.

Bull freezes then splays his hand, pushing sand out of the way and holding it there.

Glass.

He stops. Everyone stops. And then they start moving.

It’s smooth glass - warm to the touch, and it faintly, gently, shimmers green in time with the pulses of energy Lavellan emits.

Bull carefully raps his hand against it, and then a hand presses against the glass on the other side.

Bright and green.

Bull breathes out a word, many words, and Lavellan’s hand feebly beats back against him.

They crack the glass like an egg, and Lavellan is there, squinting up at them with a small cluster of Inquisition soldiers and scouts packed tight around her. Both her hands are raised and shaking.

Bull hauls her up by her arms, and the solidity of her makes him gasp, weak in the knees. She’s weak and light in his arms, shaking.

He pulls her out of the sand and leaves the rest to the others.

She is his priority.

Lavellan’s sand-flecked and her eyes slide closed. Bull pulls his water skin and his clumsy fingers take a few failed attempts at opening it before he’s able to tip it to her mouth. Little at a time. Small trickles. Can’t get her sick. Can’t let her get sick.

Her voice is soft, raspy, “I held it.”

“Yeah?”

“It fell,” Her hand lifts slightly and points towards the sand where they pulled her from. “But I remembered. The story Vivienne told me. Made glass. Fulgurite.”

“Yeah,” Bull says, “Clever thinking, Boss.”

“Clever?” Lavellan repeats, softly. “M’tired.”

“Okay, I hear you.” Bull hefts her into his arms, and she closes her eyes, grit and heat and the foul smell of sweat and skin. “Hold out a little longer, alright, boss? We’re gonna get you to a medic. And some food.”

Lavellan dips her head and then, opening an eye slowly -

“Dorian?”

“He’s here,” Bull says. “He found you.”

Lavellan’s lip quirks up. “Told him. Knew you’d both find me. Work together. Good team.”

With a common goal in mind, yeah, good team.

Bull grins, and brushes some sand off her face the best he can, gets more of it in her hair.

“Yeah. We found you.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Admiring the view?”

Bull looks away from the butter-gold square of light and raises an eyebrow at Solas.

“Halamshiral is a place of many beauties,” Solas continues, appraising and judging. Every conversation is a game, a match. Sometimes Bull appreciates it; it keeps him sharp and on his toes, ready to go. Other times, times like now - times that are growing steadily more increasing the more he watches, the more they speak -, it can get pretty damn tiring.

He doesn’t know how Lavellan handles it. The constant scrutiny. The endless lines of double entendre and testing and bait and switch Solas rolls out in waves. It means more, because Solas means more to her than he does the Iron Bull.

Bull respects Solas plenty. But he doesn’t love the guy.

“Yeah, but there’s only one worth looking at because she could fuck you up good if you don’t,” Bull replies.

Solas raises an eyebrow.

“Celene,” Bull clarifies. “Lavellan, too, but you can’t see her from here. Right now.”

Solas’ lips quirk upwards and he comes to stand next to the Iron Bull, eyes probably catching everything better than Bull’s one. Qunari see better in the dark than humans, but not as well as the elves.

Bull takes a moment to wonder what Solas thinks of this place. The place where the last remnants of the elven empire fell. The broken promise of the Dales. The place still keeps its name. _Halamshiral_.

This entire place is just cruelty, insult, and degradation. Bull knows that if Tevinter turned Par Vollen into something like this he’d die a little every time he even breathed in its direction.

“Do you wish it were you in there,” Solas asks as he gazes into the Winter Palace, “With her, enjoying the _culture_?”

Solas smirks around the word culture the way Tevinters say the word templar. Like a joke.

“Sure,” Bull replies because he isn’t going to play this game, “Don’t you?”

“And yet we are both here; waiting in the wings as they say,” Solas says looking away from the palace,” And instead it is Cassandra, Varric, and Cole who stand - visibly - at her side. Cassandra and Varric are both prominent and well respected in their circles, and famous enough outside of them that they only boost the Inquisition’s reputation. Cole is a valuable asset - unseen and yet all seeing. Was that your doing, the Iron Bull? Clever choices.”

Bull raises an eyebrow. “Why do you think it’s me?”

Solas returns the look, “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”

Bull sneers - tired of this, this game, because it speaks volumes of what the man thinks of his so called precious and beloved student, _da’len_ \- , “Just because you’re always in her ear trying to twist her around to do what you want doesn’t mean the rest of us are. Sometimes being close to someone doesn’t actually lead to using them. It might surprise you, but she chose them herself. There’s a reason why she’s the Inquisitor and it isn’t just the glowing hand.”

Solas’ eyes are cold. Appraising. Turning him and his words over and over looking for shadows that aren’t there.

Bull wonders if Solas ever gets tired of that. He knows that he did.

That’s why he’s here.

Too good for the Qun to let go, too damaged for them to hold close to the chest. Best to let him fall apart somewhere far away.

Bull looks away and back to the palace window. Earlier in the party Lavellan had stood by the window for a while, eyes scanning the night. He doesn’t know if she saw him from so far away. He saw her.

Lavellan looked - strange. She looked strange in the bright red dress uniform. Wrong. They forced her hair into something more appropriate for human noble party than her normal explosion of Dalish braids and charms and beads and tangles. Without it, without her armor and her little charms and her beads and her bones and her foci and the innumerable things she put on along with the other things she wears at Skyhold and when they’re out fighting, she looked _wrong_.

Just her skin and her eyes and her vallaslin. The only things familiar on an unfamiliar face. The familiar in the unfamiliar, the unfamiliar in the familiar. Disconcerting is one word for it.

Fucked up is Bull’s preferred way of saying it.

It was like they stripped her of everything her and gave her a different person-skin to wear. That is not Lavellan’s role.

That is a spy’s role. A pawn’s role. The role of a disposable thing.

That is Bull’s role. Hissrad’s role - but no one knows that quite yet.

But it is not _Lavellan’s_ role. It is not the Inquisitor’s role. It is not _her_ role.

He thinks some of them are aware of that.

Dorian had brushed his hands over the front of her jacket, face a painful and familiar cross of disturbed and sad and disappointed and _adoring_ all at once.

“They won’t know what hit them,” Dorian said.

Partially because _they_ don’t know what’s going to hit them.

A stranger with Lavellan’s eyes.

The rest of her is foreign. The way she talks - months of brow-beating a Marcher accent into her - and the way she moves and the way she smiles and moues and all that other shit they crammed down her throat like fattening a goose for year’s-end.

“You know why she didn’t bring you?” Bull asks instead of answering. Solas raises a challenging eyebrow - _go on_. “Aside from the fact that you bring nothing to the table, you’d disappoint her.”

“And how do you surmise this?”

“I didn’t guess,” Bull looks Solas directly in the eye and does not back down, “She told me. You read people well. We all know that. We also all know that with all the artifacts the Empress hoards, you’d probably find some and be able to tell the Inquisition something. You could’ve served those purposes as weird as they are; hairpin used to pick a lock, a pillow case to hold gold, a coin used as a wedge. But you aren’t. Because she knew you’d disappoint her; let her down. She knew that if she brought you with her you would do nothing but judge and test. Not the people, not the situation. _Her_.”

Bull snorts.

“Instead of doing any of those things, you’d be judging everyone and everything. Distancing yourself. Watching. Observing. Tell me, Solas, have you ever _not_ let anything in life pass you by? Like a dream?”

Solas’ face is a flat and perfectly cut glass sheet. Bull smirks.

“Her words,” Bull says tipping his head towards the palace, “Her judgement. And she’s right.”

“And why aren’t _you_ with her?” Solas asks, voice smooth and uncreased - velvet waiting to be crumpled.

“Because she knows that for all I’m good at acting and spying and fighting, for all that I’d be a nice exotic touch, and a good reputation considering all the work the Chargers have done in Orlais and for these nobles,” Bull answers, “She also knows she needs eyes on the outside.”

Bull meets Solas’ gaze head on.

“You aren’t the only one found wanting.” Bull uses every single inch of his height and size to loom over the elf, “So, tell me. Who are you watching?”


	8. Chapter 8

“You never told me,” She says, barely audible even with her mouth so close to his ear. He can barely feel the words - he glances down at her, adjusts her weight in his arm, jostling her up and she winces just a little; she goes stiff for a moment and he definitely feels the sharp intake of her breath against the skin of his exposed neck.  Lavellan’s arms clumsily circle his neck as he holds her closer to him, tries to shield more of her with his other side, turning to walk a slightly less straight path.

“Told you what, Boss?”

“What would happen,” She says, voice quiet and careful, tired. He knows she’d prefer to walk. He knows that it would be better for her image if she was seen walking. Leading them through the snow and mountains to shelter.

But a mountain just fell down on her and she almost died of hypothermia multiple times during the past few nights. Also they’re on limited rations and materials.

Lavellan’s breathing is unsteady for a few moments, and the tip of her nose presses close against his neck. Freezing. He’s surprised by how cold it is, as her skin finds the gap between the heavy coat someone managed to find and his skin.

“You never told me what would happen if the Qun took over,” She finishes.

“I didn’t?”

“You told me Cullen and Cassandra would be okay. But not Dorian or Solas or Vivienne. You said you didn’t want to think about it. But you didn’t say about me.”

Bull’s fingers twitch and Lavellan’s knees knock against his ribs.

“I guess I didn’t,” Bull says.

He didn’t know her well enough, then. Honestly, Bull doesn’t know if he knows her well enough now.

Bull also doesn’t want to think about it. There’s a reason why he prefers to think of it in the distant future, as something beyond his lifetime, something far away that he’ll never see.

There is a reason why he is _here_ , with her, and not there, working on the war.

“What would happen?”

Bull doesn’t answer her. Because he’d have to think about it.

It is not something he wants to do.

“It wouldn’t be pretty,” Bull says eventually. Just them and the sounds of everyone else moving and the echoing silence of being this high up in the mountains. The snow makes things slow going, but at least there’s sparse cover, too. He thinks he’d enjoy the view more if it weren’t so damned dangerous in the grand scheme of things.

He can enjoy the dangerous - the life threatening. When it’s personal to him. Not so much when it threatens the existence of everything else. Because that’s what it means. If the Inquisition - if _Lavellan_ goes down, the rest of the world is going to follow real quick.

Lavellan laughs, “Since when was the domination and subjugation of a race pretty?”

Poor choice of words, Bull realizes. Lavellan’s entire race is the result that kind of ugly. Her way of life is shaped by working around the scar of ugliness.

“There wouldn’t be anything left,” Bull says.

“And what of me?”

“Nothing,” Bull repeats. Because that’s how it would be.

There would be Lavellan.

And then there would be the Qun.

And then there would be nothing of her left.

Bull thinks he understands enough of her, knows enough about her, to guess this outcome.

“Nothing would happen to me, is that what you mean?”

“No,” Bull says, “I mean you would be nothing in the Qun. You would be dead once they take all of your secrets.”

Bull does not even think they’d try that. They wouldn’t try to break her or shape her or get into her head. Because Bull would advise against it. Wasted resources and time. Quicker and more practical to just kill her right away. Spare everyone the grief and frustration.

Lavellan does not say anything back for a while.

Bull trudges through snow, doing his best to keep as much of her sheltered by the wind with the rest of his body as he can. The sound of the mountains feels a lot like the sound of blood rushing through his ears. The kind of sound that reminds you how alive you are, how much has gone into making and shaping you, how easily you can be undone, how easily you can fall apart, how small you are in comparison to everything else.

They are all made of little things piled up like carved wood pieces to make something bigger and slightly more coherent.

“Stop,” She says.

“What?”

“Stop walking.”

Bull comes to a slow stop. They have time. The tail end of the Inquisition’s surviving band is a bit back from them.

Lavellan moves, slowly, in his hold, reaching her cold hand to touch his cheek and turn his head to face her.

The woman is pale, sick looking. Bloodless and gaunt. Bull’s honestly surprised she’s made it this far, this well. He’s surprised that she’s awake and talking so clearly - if so quietly - and so coherently.

“If I am nowhere in the Qun,” Lavellan says, “Then who will remember me?”

“In time,” Bull answers her, “No one.”

Lavellan searches his face.

“Not even you?”

“Do you remember what I told you about people being like books?”

“Yes,” She answers.

“This chapter,” Bull tells her, “When you are gone, will have been long ripped out of me.”

Her eyes look deep into him, and her hand falls away from his face.

She looks away from him, towards the Breach.

“And what of that? Where is that, under the Qun?”

“I don’t know,” Bull says, “It isn’t my job to know.”

Lavellan slowly settles back down against his chest, head on his shoulder even as her eyes remain fixed on the Breach. “Alright.”

Bull takes this to be a sign that he can start walking again, so he does. He hefts his pack higher over his shoulder with his free hand, and carefully adjusts her weight in his other.

“You will remember me,” Lavellan says as they walk away from the Breach - her voice is low and dark and _startling_ ; her voice is different from what he is used to, from what he has come to expect from her. She is _unfamiliar_ , foreign and new. Bull almost throws her away from him - this stranger.  “When I am through with you - with _all_ of you - you will remember me. If nothing else, this I promise. _They_ will not erase me. I will always be my own. Even if that means being my own nothingness. Mark my words, the Iron Bull. When I die, it will be by no one’s hand but my own.”


	9. Chapter 9

“If we both stick to the story,” Bull whispers low into her ear, “They can’t prove anything.”

He watches as her lips press together into a fine line, going white as she tries not to laugh. Her eyes flutter open and closed as her mouth squeezes shut. Bull straightens up and grins as Cassandra throws the door open.

Cassandra pauses, looking between the two of them before directing her gaze on him.

Bull gives a half-salute.

Lavellan’s shoulders relax in relief.

“ _You_ ,” Cassandra says, “Why is it always you?”

“Do you say that to Varric and Sera, too?” Bull asks.

“No, _Cullen_ says that to Varric and Sera,” Cassandra snorts. “I get to deal with you. Maker knows why.”

“Cullen likes me,” Bull fake-whispers to Lavellan, giving her a wink as she struggles not to laugh. “Commander to Chief, he knows the struggles of leading groups of hot-heads.”

Cassandra hisses what probably was supposed to be a sigh between her teeth.

“Should I even ask?”

“Ask what?”

“ _Why_?” She waves towards the center of Haven.

“Dunno what you mean, Seeker.”

“Don’t play dumb!”

“It’s not a play if I really am that stupid, and who knows? Maybe I am.”

“You aren’t.”

“Your confidence means a lot, Pentaghast.”

Cassandra looks ready to knock him a good one and be done with it, and honestly Bull would actually probably enjoy that more than he should.

They both glance at Lavellan - quickly out of the corner of their eyes. Lavellan would not enjoy it at all.

“What in the Maker’s name possessed you to have an all out _brawl_ in front of the Chantry?”

Bull is here because he answers for his people. The Chargers are his responsibility.

Bull is also here because there is no leader of the Inquisition, and so they answer to no one.

So when someone calls Lavellan a knife-eared cunt, Skinner throws the first punch. And he’s proud of her for not throwing a knife.

And then someone grabs Skinner.

So Krem steps in and gets called an _aberration_.

That’s when Blackwall - good guy, Blackwall - intervenes with a swift kick to the speaker’s ass.

And _that_ is where it turns into a brawl.

But Bull doesn’t say that, because Lavellan is looking up at him with _those eyes_ because she doesn’t want this to be about her. For once.

So Bull shrugs and says, “It relieved tension. Everyone knows a fight or a fuck relieves tension.”

“ _In front of the Chantry_?” Cassandra says, “In front of all the lay sisters? And civilians? And dignitaries?”

Bull hums, “Well, a fuck did seem slightly more blasphemous at the time. But if that’s what you’d have us rather do I’m not gonna say no.”

Cassandra makes a disgusted noise.

Bull winks at Lavellan when Cassandra covers her eyes with a hand.

Lavellan tentatively releases her lip to smile back. There’s a light bruise over her cheek. No blood that he can see, but he doesn’t know when she got the bruise. Bull holds back on the urge to take her face in his hand and check on it closer. She hasn’t given him that sort of permission, yet.

But it doesn’t look too bad. Small, not very dark, no signs of spreading. She must’ve treated it when he wasn’t looking. Or someone must have.

No other injuries that he can tell and she isn’t showing the signs of a serious head wound.

All things considered, Bull thinks that this went rather well.

“I have no words,” Cassandra says, “I am not a disciplinarian.”

She looks at Lavellan, “I am surprised by your actions.”

Lavellan holds under Cassandra’s gaze.

Cassandra’s expression abruptly softens.

“You did not have to lie,” She says and Bull raises an eyebrow as Cassandra turns an unimpressed look on him. “Did you think that you could fight right in front of Leliana and lie about the reason?”

Bull shrugs. He doesn’t know who talks to who and when just yet. He thought that they might have had some time.

“I am sorry that you felt you had to lie,” Cassandra turns back to Lavellan, “The Inquisition is not meant to divide like this. It is meant to stand together. And if it does not stand with you - for elves and mages and women - then it does not stand at all.”

Her fingers twitch like she wants to reach out. She doesn’t.

Lavellan tangles her fingers in front of her, awkward and fidgeting.

They stand in silence for a moment before Cassandra does reach out and carefully touch her fingertips to Lavellan’s elbow. And when Lavellan doesn’t react, she allows her palm to touch as well.

“I am also sorry that you felt you had to keep this from us - from me,” Cassandra says, voice lower, “If I was there, if I heard, I would not have opened with just a _punch._ ”

Lavellan’s eyes flicker up to meet Cassandra’s, and her mouth is a smile for a brief moment.

“I have to go,” Cassandra says, letting her hand fall away after a moment, “Cullen is speaking to the others at this moment. He knows, too. And he has no sympathy for such actions. I am sure that the punishment he thinks up will be - creative.”

Cassandra’s own mouth quirks into a brief smile.

“Take care of yourself, Lavellan,” Cassandra says before turning to the Iron Bull, “And tell your dwarf - the drunk one - to stop bringing explosives into Haven.”

“They’re all drunk,” Bull replies, “Because they’re _dwarves_.”

Cassandra rolls her eyes and leaves.

“Profiling,” Lavellan whispers as Cassandra closes the door behind her.

Bull reaches over and ruffles her hair and she snorts a small laugh, trying to wave his hands off.

“Nah, it’s true. That’s their excuse whenever I catch them at it. C’mon, let’s go. Stitches probably has something for the nerves.”

“Who’s Stitches?”

“You haven’t met Stitches yet? Ah, you two would have a great time talking about your grass and stuff.”

“Herbs, the Iron Bull. They’re _herbs_.”

“Grass is grass is grass. It all tastes the same unless you ferment it to hell and back.” Bull puts a hand on her shoulder and guides her away. “He’s got some of that stuff too. You should try it.”


	10. Chapter 10

It feels like ages ago, when they brought back the few things they were able to salvage from Wycome. Among her mother’s things, Lavellan had found a broken-toothed comb. Small and wooden, worn with use and care and age.

“It was mine,” Lavellan had said, holding the thing in her hands. “I mean, we all used it. But it was mine. I made it. It was my first wood craft project - after the basics: arrows, spoons, axles.”

Lavellan’s expression had wavered, softly - a reflection distorted by a rock being thrown into water.

“I hated this thing,” She laughed, water splashing after you drop an urn. “I _hated it_.”

Bull doesn’t know what she did with the comb. Or any of the other things they brought back.

No bodies.

Lavellan had specifically asked for that. No bodies, no names, no descriptions. Just graves. Graves with trees.

Now, Bull sits here holding the tooth Lavellan carved when she still had two hands, when they all thought everyone was going to die, when they stood on top of the edge of the fucking world and flipped all the higher powers the finger and told them to take it up the ass.

Now, he sits here, and he wonders what she wants. Bull did not think of this. Shortsighted, he realizes - something he has been bred not to be - , of him not to.

They all knew that she wasn’t on borrowed time. She was on _stolen time_.

The Anchor should’ve killed her that first second, it should have killed by the end of that first day, it should have killed her at the fall of Haven, and it should’ve killed her a dozen times over since.

Bull doesn’t know why he allowed himself to be blind like that. He doesn’t know why he was dumb enough to think for even a moment - to permit himself -

The chains are empty. He cannot undo what has been done. It is free. It is inside of him. He cannot go back to being caged.

“I did not die for this,” Cole’s voice is whispery and breaking in and out, intense and dark in ways Cole rarely is, and it’s directly in Bull’s ear. Bull turns - but if Cole is really there, on Bull’s blind side, then he’s moving to stay in Bull’s blind spot. Or he isn’t there at all. “I did not die for _them,_ no. I didn’t die for them and their politics and their _dirty blood_.”

It takes Bull a few seconds to realize who Cole is channeling and his hands curl tighter around the worn edges of the tooth, the chords squeezing against his fingers as he knots them tighter and tighter.

“I didn’t die for you to go back to the Qun,” Cole-Lavellan hisses and Bull grinds his teeth together, sets his feet and presses his heels down into the clean marble. “I did not die for you to be weak.”

“Is she?” Bull asks.

“No,” Cole’s voice is strained, “Not yet. Soon. I don’t know.”

Bull doesn’t know if he should stay here, in the courtyard outside, or go into that mess of a hallway.

“I don’t know,” Cole’s voice feels like it’s tearing apart at the seams. “She’s her but she’s not.”

“Death does that,” Bull says.

“Darker,” Cole says, “But not dimming. Colder, but not extinguished. Deep, but not falling. It’s too much.”

Bodies are just shells. Bull knows he doesn’t care what happens to his when he goes.

But _hers_.

Bury her with a tree? A flower? At Skyhold? In the Dales? Emerald Graves? Temple of Mythal? What kind of tree? All the Dalish clans have different ways of doing things. Would he be able to force the Inquisition into giving her the one she wanted?

Would her death be taken from her, too?

If they do to her death what they’ve done to the rest of her life, Bull doesn’t know if he’d be able to go with it. Bull’s done a lot of things he doesn’t necessarily agree with or approve of, or even find right - morally or pragmatically - but if they do that to her he doesn’t think he could go along with it.

And there would be no one to make him.

“I want to be with my mother’s comb,” Cole’s voice flattens out, “Don’t bury me. I don’t want a canopy of stars and jade. I don’t want sun or moon or rain or snow or wind.”

Bull closes his eye.

“Where is the comb, Cole?” Bull asks.

“Put me with the necklace, _his necklace_ ,” Cole’s hand squeezes Bull’s. Bull opens his eyes but there’s nothing there. “And put both of us with my mother’s comb. Did you tell them that, Cole? Are you telling them that? Did you tell the Iron Bull? He would do it. He will find a way. _If no one else him_. He will die for my death.”

Bull swallows, skin chilling.

Because he would.

To give her what she wants - yeah. Bull would fuck the rest of the world over. He’s pretty sure all of the Chargers and most of their friends would even help him.

And if they didn’t -

Bull would do it alone.

“Yes, I’m telling him now. Yes. He knows. He’d do it. Yes. Yes, yes, _yes_.” Cole’s hand disappears and is replaced with something more familiar. Bull freezes, stiff and terrified.

Her hand - he would know it anywhere. She isn’t here, but it is her hand.

“I can’t go where they are,” Her voice, Cole’s voice, meshed together, Cole channeling her in a way that he’s never seen the kid do before,e ver. “I can’t be with them - mother, father, Keeper, Mahanon. I can’t rest in the same ground as them. Don’t put me in the ground.”

“Where?” Bull asks, voice unfamiliar through his own mouth.

“With the comb that I hated,” She says, “With the tooth I have now. With all the other things I couldn’t stand to lose agin.”

“I don’t know where that is,” Bull says.

“I couldn’t lose them again,” Lavellan’s voice trembles, vibrates in the air and shoots down his spine. “I couldn’t lose them again, I wouldn’t let anyone take them from me, not even you. I destroyed them. Destroy me. Erase me. _I do not want to be taken_. _I did not die for their peace of mind_. Make me disappear.”

“Tall order,” Bull’s voice croaks and her hand slides down his, fingertip to fingertip. Bull reaches into empty air, and he feels her finger leave his.

“Say yes,” She whispers against his mouth. “Promise me. One last time. Carry me away.”

Bull hesitates.

“A body is a shell,” She presses, “You did not love my body, it was not my body whom you called _kadan_ , it was not my body you obeyed, it was not my body you protected at night and twilight hours. It was not my body that gave you peace, it was not my body you dreamed of, it was not my body you labored over. Destroy it.”

“Are you sure?” Bull asks, afraid. This has never been asked of him before.

Will he survive it?

“You must,” She answers.

“Then yes,” He promises. “I’ll do it.”

Her laugh echoes into his heart - sweet and unfairly light for what she has made him promise. Cole appears, standing there dazed and hollow for a moment.

“It was not a lie,” Cole says eyes unfocused, or focused on something elsewhere, and disappears. And then, a faint whisper, “When it is done, throw whatever is left into the sea. It will take her far away from you, from them, from all of this. And when you cannot go on any longer, return to her. She will take you in open arms.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Can you believe it?” Lavellan says.

“You got a nice place,” Bull says looking around as Lavellan trails her fingers over the spines of books and the edges of the heavy desk in the corner. “Nice bed, Boss.”

“Big enough for five,” Lavellan replies, voice lowered in an fake whisper, eyes laughing, “For all the people I lure up here.”

Bull snorts.

“Or big enough for two,” Lavellan says, then makes a face at the bed. “Though I’d rather toss the thing. Or use it as a cot for the injured.”

“Kind of fancy for a cot,” Bull says.

They both look up at the ornate canopy above it.

“It reminds me of - what’s it called?” Lavellan makes a vague circular shape with her hand, “The one with the sugar and filling. The one that always makes Cullen make a weird face because it’s - what’s the word?”

“Cream puff,” Bull answers, “And the word is frivolous.”

“That’s what Cullen calls all of Orlais,” Lavellan snorts. “I was trying to go for the other one, but they said it wasn’t _dignified_.”

“What was the other one?”

“Furs.” Lavellan says. “Simple furs on wood posts. I don’t really like beds, to be honest, but I think that one would’ve been closest to what I’m used to. There was a nice black bear pelt I saw from a trader that I was going to put on it. They said no.”

She turns to the corner with the desk.

“But they put a lute in here,” Lavellan turns and gives him an absolutely baffled look, “I can’t play the lute. I also don’t really know how to read well enough to read whatever it is they’ve put in those shelves. I’m barely past the primers Vivienne is teaching me Orlesian on.”

“How’s the common going?”

“Better, but that’s because the books Varric and Sera are teaching me with have dogs and funny pictures.”

Lavellan pauses and braces a foot at one end of the ornately curved feet of the bed.

“I was going to make the pillows myself and everything,” Lavellan sounds mournful, “ What’s the use of this canopy anyway? There aren’t any bugs in Skyhold. There’s no stagnant water and it isn’t cold. This canopy doesn’t even cover the entire bed. Just the top part.”

“I don’t think it’s meant to be practical, Boss,” Bull snorts.

“There are little stairs on the sides,” Lavellan says. “How small would you have to be to need stairs to get onto this bed and if you’re that small _why are you in a bed this big_?”

“All important questions,” Bull says, “But the bigger question is, what are you even going to do with all this space? We’re barely in Skyhold for longer than week.”

“That might change,” Lavellan shrugs, “Also I don’t know. It’s not really mine to do anything with. Besides I sleep in your room. Or Dorian’s. Or Sera’s. Sometime’s in the barn. I’m never here anyway.”

“Dunno how they could stop you if you wanted it,” Bull says, sitting down on the bed and grimacing because he sinks. A lot. Lavellan snorts a laugh. He reaches out and snags her by the waist, dragging her onto him. She laughs and rolls out onto his lap, grinning up at him.

“It’s not like it’s _mine_ ,” She says.

“Your castle. Your Inquisition,” Bull points out.

“Ah,” She rests her head on her bent arm, mouth curving as she looks up at him,”The _Inquisition’s_ castle. _Everyone’s_ Inquisition.”

“Everyone doesn’t call the shots.”

“That may not be so,” Lavellan’s legs kick a little before she rolls onto her back, spine draped over his thighs, hair spreading out on stupid thin sheets, “But I am not the one in charge, not completely. Didn’t you know, the Iron Bull? Nothing is mine. I own nothing. This castle, this body, this hand, this magic.”

Lavellan opens her hand on her stomach, turning it upwards, the light faintly spilling out like a small green piece of glass.

“My own name, my face, my words. None of it is mine,” Lavellan sits up, tapping him on the nose, “You aren’t mine, either.”

Bull doesn’t say anything to that.

They both know he is not hers to keep.

He is the Qun’s thing, temporarily set aside, but he will be called back someday.

She smiles when he doesn’t say anything to that.

“Well isn’t that deep,” Bull says, hand resting on her calf. And then, because it is somehow important that she understands this -  “The Iron Bull is yours.”

“Whatever is left,” Lavellan says, resting her head on his shoulder before sliding away to explore some more. “I have barrels.”

“Of what?”

“Fun,” Lavellan deadpans, as she drags one out of the closet, “I don’t actually know. I think they were already in here when we got here. Also these closets have ladders. And someone’s painted a mural up there. I don’t know why. It’s nice, I suppose. Colors and shapes and things.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got a way with words, Boss?” Bull pushes to his feet to try and take a look at this mural.

Lavellan waves at him, leaning over the railing of that weird upper section of the room. He has no idea what the hell anyone would need that for.

Bull’s willing to bet good coin that Lavellan is going to make a nice little nest up there, though. It looks small and narrow enough to fit her needs. Cosy.

“You think I could convince Dennet to let me bring some dogs up here?” Lavellan asks, “Those pups can’t possibly be enjoying the cold tents and the barn.”

“I’m sure he’s going to be real impressed with how much of a bleeding heart you are,” Bull snorts. “I’m surprised you don’t want the deer up here.”

“Don’t be silly, Bull, there isn’t enough room for the deer up here,” Lavellan waves her hand, “And there isn’t any grass. They’d be _miserable_.”

Lavellan hums.

“Do you think I can convince Cullen to switch rooms with me? I could just walk outside and see them from the battlements. Have you seen the Commander’s quarters, the Iron Bull? _He’s got a view_.”

“He’s got a hole in his roof.” Bull snorts, “That’s not a view, that’s a structural liability.”

Lavellan laughs with the slight narrowing of her eyes.

“So you _have_ been to Cullen’s quarters?”

“I helped move the bed up there, Boss,” Bull says, “And I’m gonna tell you now - whatever shit you had planned for stealing the place isn’t going to work. Cullen’s got it all set up so he can just work non-stop without anyone breathing down his neck to go to bed because his bed is literally right there. He’s got the whole thing sorted. You’d never escape, then.”


	12. Chapter 12

It is one of those weirdly few and far between moments where everything isn’t shitty, no one is breathing down his or anyone else’s neck to do something, and the impending threat of Corypheus and Tevinter extremists can be put aside for a few more moments.

All in all, it’s a good moment. A peaceful moment.

Bull’s had a relaxing day of helping the Commander drill soldiers and recruits, working with his own guys to polish their individual skills up, and lunch with the Ambassador. The Ambassador is an ocean of questions, not exactly different from the Boss, but different enough that it’s refreshing in its own way. Bull doesn’t think that talking with the Boss will ever become mundane or routine. There’s alway something new and clever about her.

Bull doesn’t really go to the garden, much, unless there’s something he has to do there; someone he has to call or deliver a message to, something he has to pick up, something he has to drop off. But it’s nice. Definitely different from how it looked before.

Less rock and overgrown brambles, more actual green stuff. And purple and orange and red and all those pretty colors that make things look not-dead.

There’s still that touch of _wild_ to it, he doesn’t think any garden that has Lavellan as its tender could be anything tame, but he’s sure the other gardeners have tried.

There’s a little gazebo thing and places to sit and chairs and stuff.

Lavellan is currently attempting to plant some sort of tree. It’s almost as big as she is, but she mostly has control of the situation.

Cole and Blackwall are attempting to help; Cole in that he’s talking poetry about the sun and the grass and everything in between; Blackwall’s just trying to take the tree or shovel or both from the Boss so he could do it for her.

In this case Cole is more helpful than Blackwall.

Lavellan is going to get annoyed with the man’s attempts to help any second now.

Dalish and Stitches have been talking something about plants with Solas for a while now, clustered together by a marble bench under the shade. Dalish is sitting with some cloth spread out next to her on the bench, pointing and gesticulating as she talks, Solas and Stitches standing over her and making the odd comment or gesture here and there.

Bull closes his legs a little to make room for Dorian when the man swipes at his ankle with his foot.

“Pavus,” Bull says, nodding his head at the man.

“Bull,” Dorian says sitting next to him, “The Commander and I are due for a chess match. Would you like to play the loser?”

Bull snorts, “What, is that supposed to be punishment or something?”

“I just want to see if you cheat when you play Cullen,” Dorian says.

“I don’t need to cheat,” Bull says, “Unlike some players I have _skill_.”

Dorian kicks his ankle. Bull laughs.

“It’s part of the game,” Dorian says, “Don’t be dull about it.”

“You’re just bitter,” Bull replies, “Ever win a round against Solas?”

“Tied,” Dorian answers a beat later, “ _Once_.”

“Well,” Bull says, “At least you’re still better than Blackwall.”

“As if that’s any compliment,” Dorian mutters.

“Ever get around to teaching Lavellan?”

“Are you joking? Lavellan cheats worse than I do,” Dorian says, “She doesn’t even know half the rules and she cheats. So, are you in? Play the loser?”

“Awful confident that you’ll win, Dorian,” Bull says.

“If I’m not then no one else will be,” Dorian replies, voice light in all the ways that make Bull want to call his bluff. Pretty words hiding a mass of rot underneath. But he doesn’t, because that is not their relationship. It isn’t his place.

It’s Lavellan’s, and Lavellan isn’t in earshot right now.

“I’ll miss moments like these the most, I think,” Dorian says suddenly. Bull turns to look at him. Dorian is watching Lavellan, something sad and falling apart at the corners of his eyes.

It strikes Bull, again, how much Dorian loves their girl. How much he really, really loves her.

“I miss them already, but when this is all over, I think I’ll miss them even more,” Dorian says. “It’s like all these moments are already over and I’m just counting them down. How many more chances do I have left for this kind of time? This kind of absurdly catch-free happiness? How many more times will I watch her do something incredibly inane and enjoy it? How many more times will I be able to just sit here and banter with one of you about something simple and not-life-threatening? How many of those moments have I wasted not knowing? Am I living them all?”

“Those sound like the words of a dying man,” Bull says, because he’s known dying men. He’s loved some dying men. And they all sound like that.

“Aren’t we all?” Dorian turns to look at him, “There are two ways this ends, but it will end. You’ve thought of that, haven’t you?”

“I know it, but I try not to think about it,” Bull admits. “It’s far away and close enough that I can’t afford to think about it too much. Not good for the heart.”

“That’s exactly it,” Dorian says, “I don’t want to think about it either, but I can’t help it.”

They both turn to look at Lavellan again.

“She’s killed us all and she doesn’t even know it,” Dorian muses. “Ruined us. Whoever we were before is dead. We did this so everything would go back to normal. I think I’m beginning to realize things will never be normal again. I think about what I wanted as normal before this and I want to vomit and I want to scream and I want to rant. I don’t want it anymore. I _can’t have it_ anymore.”

“Yeah,” Bull says because he dreams about a life without his boys, a life without this. Sometimes he dreams he is washed clean again, the pages of his life rewritten and kept in copy, read side by side. Conflicting accounts where the one the Qun wishes to be is not the one he chooses. Bull cannot go back to that. Hissrad is dead. The Iron Bull remains.

For whatever little time there is left, he remains where he was meant to be.

They both glance to the side when they hear Cullen and Varric lightly bickering as they enter the garden, something about roses.

Bull raises a hand and waves at them as they draw closer.

“She’s given us something better,” Bull says. “And burned the bridge to the way back when we weren’t looking.”

“More than burned it, I’d say,” Dorian says before standing up and moving towards the table and chairs underneath one of the gazebos. “Doesn’t see like nearly a dramatic enough word. She’s blasted it straight into non-existence.”


	13. Chapter 13

“You may be surprised by this,” Bull finds himself saying, “But I’m actually worth more to her dead than alive.”

Gatt looks unimpressed by this. Bull supposes that the man has a point.

Bull’s alternative name aside from his numerical code is _liar_ , after all.

“No, really,” Bull says, “I wanted to tell you in advance. In case anything happens and you end up having to kill me.”

“Why, is something _going_ to happen?” Gatt raises an eyebrow.

Bull shrugs, “You never know with Tevinter and magic, Gatt. Besides, Lavellan is - she spices things up.”

Gatt’s eyes are sharp, carving out all the things Bull is trying to keep to the edges, to shake off.

“You’re attached,” Gatt snorts, “Really? I know you work closely with her - but she’s a mark, Hissrad. You don’t get attached to your mark. You’re probably going to be the one assigned to kill her when this is over.”

Bull can’t help the way his everything stiffens, sharpens, hones in on those words.

“What?”

Gatt is a combination of disbelieving, disappointed, and astounded when he replies, “You mean you honestly thought that the Qun would just let _that_ go around unchecked? It probably can’t even be controlled. Can she control it?”

“Yes,” Bull lies. Gatt knows.

“The Qun isn’t letting her get away,” Gatt says, “You know that. Sure it’s useful now, but in the end it’s going to have to be taken care of.”

“It or _her_?”

“Is there a difference?”

Bull feels his bones creaking with the pull of rage - two opposite forces.

“Why do you think this will go wrong?” Gatt asks again.

“You never know,” Bull says, pushing the anger away, the rage, the words that are rattling at the chains inside. They are not Hissrad’s words. Gatt was right to be fucking surprised.

Bull is attached to his mark.

And Gatt is right.

Bull is going to have to kill her later. The Qun would never allow that kind of magic to go unchecked - especially not when it’s origin and extent is so unknown.

(The beast, the animal - the _vashoth_ \- rattles within. It paces. It snarls. It snares and snags at the chains of the Qun’s rules and logic and understanding, plans and training and all of Hissrad’s control.

That animal is a bloody thing. Bleeding and itching for more.

He can’t let it out. _He will not become that_.

He will not become that monster.

It seethes.

_I’ll break the Qun between my two hands, with my teeth, snap its fucking spine like a charred branch. I’ll squeeze the Qun dry, raze everything down to the damn ground and lower than that, too. I’ll tear you the fuck apart. Try me, I’ll do it. Try me, try to make me lay a single finger on her and I’ll bleed you dry._

It seethes. Bull wipes the sound of it from his mind. White noise.)

“I’m worth more to her dead,” Bull repeats, “Because if I’m dead it gives her a solid reason to go after the Qun. If I’m alive, she still has to deal with the Qun and the Qun’s spies. She still has to make nice with them. But if I’m dead then there’s nothing that holds her back from turning on the Qun next.”

“If one of us kills you, you mean,” Gatt clarifies.

“In general, but specifically if the Qun gets rid of me, yeah,” Bull confirms. “And believe me, she’s just waiting for an excuse. She’ heard stuff about the Qun and she doesn’t care for it much.”

“Then she should see Tevinter.”

“I’m pretty sure that when this is done she’s moving on to Tevinter next, unless someone stops her first.”

“Then the Qun has reason to keep her alive that much longer,” Gatt muses. “And you have more time to figure yourself out, Hissrad.”

The beast snarls. _I do not lie_.

Hissrad is nothing but lies.

“Bull!” They both turn to where Lavellan waves at them, the bright green on her palm faintly shining through the cloth bound over her hand. He’d be more worried that it would give away their location if it weren’t such a small hand. She looks nervous, looking directly at him. Anxious. Uneasy.

Like him.

“She’s attached,” Gatt says.

“She’s the mark, she’s supposed to be attached,” Bull points out. Though he shouldn’t be.

“She knows you’re a spy,” Gatt says. “You said she was smart.”

“She does. And she is,” Bull replies. Gatt snorts. “Lavellan is just - she’s just _Lavellan_ , Gatt. Let’s just get this over with and leave it, alright?”

“You’re the one who started it by saying stuff like that,” Gatt snorts. “Don’t worry, I’m sure that there’s no reason for the Qun to get rid of one of its best agents.”

But the truth is that Bull is _not_ one of the Qun’s best agents. And he hasn’t been for a very long time.

They’re just hoping - uncharacteristically - for something to give him purpose again. Bull’s been out in the middle of it for too long. And he might not be fighting Fog Warriors or the bulk of Tevinter’s army out here in the South, but this is not what the Qun had in mind for him.

Bull does not say that.

 _They don’t need to know_ , it says, running its fingers over bruised and scar-smooth knuckles, _not yet_.

There are layers to everything, and there are some layers that Hissrad can’t look too closely at.

It would shatter him.

As they get closer to where Lavellan is standing, a few yards away from where Krem is briefing the Chargers, and where Blackwall and Cole are waiting, it feels like Bull is losing more of his grip on things. It’s all slippery like everything else on the fucking Storm Coast. Glistening and deceptive with its solidity.

His bones ache, torn in two directions.

Gatt at his back, watching every single twitch of muscle like Bull fucking taught him to. Seeing _everything_. Once, Bull was alright with this.

He had nothing to be ashamed of.

 _I am not ashamed_ , a hiss like steam out of a kettle ready to burst its lid.

Bull swallows and gives Lavellan a smile.

She looks at him, questions in her eyes and her fingers twitch, she almost makes the mistake of reaching out to take his hand.

But her eyes land on Gatt instead and turn into something sharp, something Bull has only glimpsed at, something Hissrad has scratched the surface of; and then retreated from because it burned off the finger to bone where it scratched.

Bull has been training Lavellan too, but he did not train her in this.

Lavellan angles her body at Gatt, shoulders pulling back, chin tilting up, stance widening, jaw pulling, like a wolf ready to throw down the challenge.

There are no wolves in the Qun, laughter in a voice that is unfamiliar swells inside, _\---- will tear him apart._

Hissrad flinches away from the word he can’t let himself have.

Lavellan’s lip curls up, voice curved and sinuous, slippery and tooth-sharpening, “Boy talk?”

“Something like that, Inquisitor,” Gatt says, taking in her challenge and _wisely_ stepping down from it. Gatt is trained as an assassin, he is a Qun solider and spy. Gatt has lived Seheron and worse.

But he has not glimpsed Lavellan. _Raw, raw, raw, raw, raw, and alive_. _\----._

He swallows the word in his chest, and clears his throat. Two pairs of narrow and demanding eyes turn on him.

Lavellan jerks her head, _come_.

(A single link, worn down low by teeth and hands and horns, breaks.)

Bull follows after her.


	14. Chapter 14

He is not with her in the Fade the second time - the first time she is alone, the second time she is slightly less alone but Bull still isn’t with her so it doesn’t mean much to him, to be honest.

Bull doesn’t actually _see_ her fall into the giant rift with his own eye, but prior experience and Lavellan’s history, combined with the Inquisition’s tendency to go shitty at the wrong time, along with his gut instincts tell him that _that’s not good_ , and then _she’s there right now_ , followed by _fuck this shit, she’s gone into that thing_.

Bull is in the middle of a mess of blood and Wardens and demons, hauling the Commander to his feet with one hand and holding off a group of smaller demons with his sword.

And then the rift happens, and Bull swears.

So Bull can only rely on the second hand accounts of the people who _did_ go in with her.

Bull should’ve stayed with her. He knows it was never the plan for him to fight at her side at Adamant.

Lavellan had him on the walls with the Chargers to get their guys in and hold an escape route. Him one one side, Cassandra on the other. She also put Dorian and Sera with him, and Cole and Solas with Cassandra.

She took Blackwall, Varric, and Vivienne with her.

(“I need an inside man,” Lavellan said, tracing her finger over the edge of the map, “I need a Warden with me. It’s not safe for Cole to be so close to so much suffering and Fade energy, and it’s going to get too close for Sera to be effective. You and Cassandra are my leaders, Dorian would make me look - well.” Lavellan closed her eyes, rubbing her thumb over a slightly frayed edge of the paper, “Someday that will change. Someday I won’t ever have to conceal how much I love him.”

Bull covered her hand with his own.

“I need you on that wall,” She looked up at him, “I need you to watch them for me. Be what I can’t where I can’t. Please.”

“Typically,” Bull pointed out, “The body guard guards the body of the person who’s paying him.”

“Since when were we typical?” She replied, pulling her hand away from his.)

But plans change.

(“Switch off with him,” Lavellan snapped at Blackwall flicking her wrist and sending a streak of cold into a Warden’s chest, staggering him, “Bull, with me. There are too many on the ground and there isn’t enough of Blackwall to go around. Make a path. _Get me to Erimond_.”)

So Bull was with her when they confronted the Wardens.

But then somewhere between here and there, Lavellan left Bull with the soldiers and Wardens who chose to side with them, found Cassandra, picked up Solas somewhere, and fell into the Fade.

She comes out. Because she has to come out, because they all know that it isn’t an option for her to not come out. She comes out because Bull refuses to think about what would have happened if she didn’t come out.

But the Lavellan that comes out isn’t quite the same. Something happens in there, something aside from the Nightmare demon and the weird spirit thing of the Divine and having to ask Hawke to stay behind. Something else happens that Lavellan doesn’t tell him about.

(She told him about the memory of the first time in the Fade. She told him about the words of the Nightmare. She told him about how she chose Hawke to die. She told him about the gravestones.

“Yours,” She admitted, softly with a voice dry and rustling like the sand that Bull couldn’t seem to get out of his boots. “I didn’t look at. Mine I knew. Yours - I don’t think I could stand to know yours. I shouldn’t know yours.”

There is something safe and comforting in knowing that the person you think is strong has no fear. Bull can understand that.

“Thanks,” Bull told her, “For not looking.”

There is something safe and comforting in knowing that the person you want to rely on you, to count on you, thinks you have no fear.

There is also something safe and comforting, something powerful, in the person you want not knowing how much you lean them.)

Bull does not know if he has the right to ask.

Cassandra tells him, once, haltingly as she recounted the experience in the middle of one of their light spars, “There was a demon.”

“It was the Fade,” Bull said, “I bet there were a lot of demons.”

Cassandra gave him a _look_ and then knocked him on his ass.

“This one was different,” Cassandra continued, and then her face flickered with hesitation, with worry, with pity, “This one - this one _knew her_.”

Bull didn’t get a chance to ask her what she meant, because she went in for the kill and Bull was busy working on not getting his other eye fucked up. It was a good spar.

He got her out of breath and sweaty that time.

(Bull had two jammed fingers, a busted lip, and bruises that felt good to poke at for weeks.)

Bull has not had a chance to ask about it, ask _Lavellan_ , about it.

The chance is fucking flinging itself in Bull’s face, now.

Bull wakes up and Lavellan is sitting up, awake, but not really - her eyes focused on something elsewhere. Lavellan has had episodes of sleep-walking, and weird trances. He’s almost used to them, now.

“Boss?” Bull sat up, skin prickling under the cold night air. He brushed some of her hair back, running his fingertips over the bare skin exposed by the way his shirt slides loose over her narrow back. She didn’t respond. “Boss?”

Lavellan raised her hand and grasped at the air in front of her, sliding out of bed, hands held up as she tries to reach for something. It moves out of her grasp, and he watches as she slowly tries to snatch at it, going around the room.

“What do you see?” Bull asks. Sometimes questions get through. Sometimes.

“My demon,” Lavellan says, eyes half-closed, voice a half-clear murmur.

“Your demon?” Bull raised his knees, resting his elbows on them as he watched her.

“We all have demons,” Lavellan murmurs. Bull hums. It’s true.

“Is this a spirit?” Bull asks, because there are metaphorical demons and then there are literal demons that need to be fucking banished before they do some serious shit.

“It is a demon,” She replies. “It is _my_ demon.”

“Why is it _yours_?”

“All mages have a demon,” Lavellan said, fingers trying to snag air, like she’s trying to catch someone’s sleeve or cloak, or hand. “That one demon that won’t let them be, that wants them and them alone. Promising and threatening and waiting and watching you always.”

“What is your demon like?”

“Promising,” Lavellan stops walking, facing away from him, her back just out of reach of the square of moonlight through the window. Her hand is a faint glimmer, as if the Anchor sleeps too. She raises both hands and cups air between her palms, holding a face.

Lavellan shivers.

“Boss?”

A sound pulls itself out of Lavellan’s throat, a moan, a gasp, a sob.

“Lavellan,” Bull said, feet sliding out of bed to rest on the cold stone floor.

He reaches out for her; he has to be careful. And he has to be cautious.

Dreamers have died from less than a touch. It’s the surprise, the dissonance that kills them. Shocks them awake, sure, but shocks them dead that much faster.

Lavellan’s knees give and Bull catches her.

Asleep.

He carries her back to bed and dozes the rest of the night away.

Early morning comes, and Lavellan’s hands are on his face, cold and small and sharp.

Her eyes are deep when he looks into them. And sad. Damn sad.

Her mouth opens to speak, and closes. She turns away.

“What did you see?” He asks.

Lavellan does not lie.

(Not to him.)

Lavellan does not answer him.

“We have to start getting ready,” Lavellan says instead, sitting up, still turned away from him. “The sun is already up and it’s a long ride to the Storm Coast. And I want to get there before your contact does. The sooner we leave now, the sooner we get there.”


	15. Chapter 15

Lavellan closes her eyes like she’s been slapped and she doesn’t want to react. Bull watches, eyes sliding between her and the so-called Arcane advisor sent over from Orlais.

Leliana is giving him a _look_ from across the room telling him to not do anything and Bull won’t. He’s a professional.

This isn’t the time or place, and this is where Lavellan has to make herself _known_ as the authority here. People have a hard time believing that Lavellan is actually in charge.

Despite appearances and guesses about the Game, Lavellan can actually get people to do the things she wants when she asks - or commands - it.

This is not Bull’s fight. Bull can’t fight her battles for her, and usually he doesn’t even want to.

But right now Bull wants to. Bull wants to push off from the wall, drag that woman over the table and snarl into her face every single thing that Lavellan has given up to be here. _What they have all given up to be here_.

Lavellan opens her eyes, the bones of her spine and hands and face rearranging themselves to accommodate steel and ice as she exhales softly.

(Bull’s mind flashes to those few short months ago, after Adamant and before Halamshiral, the taste of salt on his lips and thunder and the crashing of ocean in his ears and the sounds a dreadnought makes when it explodes. And the image of her, rain soaked and unnaturally still through the wet when she wasn’t looking at him but still commanding him.

The feeling of chains breaking, of stone falling away to reveal something new, something hidden, something private and secret and shameful. The feeling of being free. The feeling of being in control, and out of it at once.

The feeling of her hands - the Anchor sliding over his skin - as she took his face in them and she dragged him down to her eye level, their noses almost touching, the wide black of her pupils and the bright colors that surround it, the unnatural cold of her breath when she spoke against his wet lips, and whispered, _mala suledin nadas, ma’vhenan_.

She smiled.)

Lavellan opens her eyes, “Repeat that.”

Morrigan raises an eyebrow, “You heard me, Inquisitor.”

“Humor me,” Lavellan’s voice has dropped into that low, rasp of winter whisper that she only uses when there is something dark swimming underneath her surface, something she doesn’t want to spook. Bull crosses his arm and watches, waits.

It’s always impressive when she brings that out. Bull likes watching it. Likes listening to it.

It sharpens him.

Morrigan turns to Leliana who’s face is an admirable imitation of a sheet of marble.

Cullen’s eyes are closed like he’s waiting and bracing himself to get hit by a storm. Josephine has slid her writing board underneath her arm and folded her arms across her chest.

“I said,” Morrigan turns back to Lavellan, “That this is about sacrifice. It isn’t about just you and your Inquisition. It’s about what’s best for _all_ of Thedas.”

The corner of Lavellan’s lip curls up, the suggestion of a smile before it twists into a sneer.

“And what, Lady Morrigan, would you know about sacrifice? What do you know of _our_ sacrifices? You’ve been here for two months, against your will, what do you know of us but rumors? Gossip?” Lavellan’s fingertips faintly lean against the edge of the war table. “The people here, from the youngest stable hand straight up to me have sacrificed over and over and over. You will not find a group of people who have given up more to be here anywhere else.”

The Anchor casts a green pall - strong even despite the early morning light. It shines over the map of Thedas.

“I lost my entire clan being here,” Lavellan says, “I didn’t even go see their remains. _I did not claim them_. I did not _help them_. I _left them_. There are those of us here who have turned their backs on their countries, their lives, their very identities. There are those of us here who are now marked for death and worse for helping us. There are people here who can never go home; forbidden from returning or because there is no place to return to. There are people in this very room who have actively been forced to turn against their beliefs and break them themselves. _Sacrifice_?”

Lavellan’s nails scrape over the wood of the table as she leans forward, “You know not the meaning of the word. _Halam’shivanas_ , do you and all your studies _of my peopl_ e with which you seek to tutor me in like I am some unmarked, unshaped _flesh_ , know what that means, Morrigan?”

“I know what it means, Inquisitor,” Morrigan says, “More than you can possibly imagine.”

“If you did, Morrigan,” The Inquisitor’s voice is sweet and patronizing and screams of bitter waves, “You would recognize it when you see it. I am a dead woman walking, Morrigan. And with every breath and action I draw closer to Falon’din’s  side. And I will walk. I will _run. I will leap_.”

Lavellan’s eyes flicker and meet his for a moment.

“There are those of us, Morrigan, who have already died for this. And you do not get to say that we, here, know nothing of sacrifice.” Lavellan’s whisper of a voice cracks, “What’s best for all of Thedas? The greater good? You do not lecture me or anyone here on that when _you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t made to be_.”

“But you do _not know,_ Inquisitor,” Morrigan says, “You do not know sacrifice as this will demand of you. You think it will end there? This venture of yours, this gamble, by the time it is done with you, with all of us, _it will have carved you clean_. It will empty you, Inquisitor. Inside and out.”

Lavellan laughs, “I’m halfway empty already, Morrigan.”

“And are you prepared,” Morrigan’s voice drops into a soft, almost shielded tone. Bull’s eyes fix on her back. This is new. This is unfamiliar. This is not a Morrigan that anyone here is used to; no one but Leliana. Leliana’s expression has shifted slightly, concern and confusion and familiarity as she looks at the witch. “For what it will do to the people who love you? What it will do to them, to watch you be stripped of all that you are, as you draw ever closer to the end, of what you could have been? Are you prepared to make them watch you die? _Are you prepared for that sacrifice_?”

Lavellan’s body is silent, and her eyes slide to Bull’s, a question that he’s a little surprised she’d even ask.

Bull dips his head and Lavellan looks back at Morrigan.

“We are prepared,” Lavellan says. “We were never under any illusions here, Morrigan. They all know that I am a dying thing, and we all here know what it is like to love a dying thing.”


	16. Chapter 16

As she stopped to catch her breath, she looked back at him and flashed him a smile. A brief second before she turns back and is absorbed back into talk with the other Dalish elves they found walking the dry plains of the Dirth.

They’ve been talking and walking in idle circles on a meandering path that vaguely heads in the general direction of where Inquisition scouts said there might be a Dalish outpost for the better part of the afternoon.

Bull watches her back for a moment, the sway of the various clinking bags and beads and bones tied hanging off her hip, the motion of the end of her staff, the movements of her shoulders as she and the other elves sign back and forth at each other.

“Seeing her here like this,” Varric says, “You really remember where she’s from.”

“Her clan’s from up North,” Bull says.

“Yeah, but when she’s with us you forget she’s _from_ a clan sometimes,” Varric points out. “Kid is good at blending in, making people forget. Not _you_ , Kid. The Inquisitor.”

“Both of us,” Cole murmurs, lagging somewhere behind Bull and Varric judging by his half-heartedly made foot steps. Though he sounds like he’s right in Bull’s ear.

“You might forget that,” Bull replies, “But I don’t.”

Bull understands what it’s like to be someone else in a strange place. Bull is not Hissrad, not his code number as assigned by the Qun, here. Not with the Chargers or the Inquisition or Lavellan.

If he were to meet with another from the Qun he would be different.

But there is no reason for him to act that way here, no purpose. He supposes if he were to act the way he was trained to act under the Qun here he’d have long been put on a hit list. Or at least, if he isn’t on one already - honestly, he’d be a little insulted if he _weren’t_ on someone’s kill list yet - he’d be bumped up to the top for it.

The Qun doesn’t really encourage the kind of behavior he likes to adopt when he’s not in its direct line of sight.

But Bull does not forget this. The Inquisitor can play it down all she wants, all everyone wants, but he doesn’t forget. You can see it in her, no matter how hard she tries to hide it.

You see it, especially in this.

“How do you forget the sound of your own heart sliding through your fingertips?” Cole murmurs, Bull glances back at Varric. He guesses that means the Kid is only talking to him. “How do you forget the heart stopping moment of sweet terror on your lips, cool at the edge of your breath, lightning in your lungs, as you leap farther than you ever have before? How do you forget the sound of your own heart at the line of almost release?”

Bull shakes his head a little. Now isn’t the time for the kid’s poetry and the grand - usually unwelcome - epiphanies that go with them.

Cole, for once, doesn’t push it. Bull glances back and Cole is shuffling behind them, eyes sweeping the plains around them.

“Should we leave her to it?” Varric asks, “Give her, you know. Some space?”

“Probably,” Bull admits. “If she weren’t the Inquisitor, yeah.”

“Important people don’t get privacy,” Varric snorts, “I almost forgot that part.”

Bull shrugs.

Not exactly what he meant. But close enough.

“The halla returns, years apart wandering foreign lands. The herd watches her return, but they do not open their ranks for her,” Cole murmurs in his ear, “The single star left out of the constellation - too far to be made part of, and close enough to _wish_.”

That’s the hard part about being a stranger in some place too long.

You become a stranger in the place you came from, too.

Bull has no doubt that Lavellan considers herself Dalish. That may change, later.

But do the _Dalish_ thinks Lavellan is Dalish?

With a name like the Inquisitor of Thedas, Herald of Andraste and fancy dragon-scale armor like that, being followed around by a Qunari and a dwarf - and Cole, if they can see him, he’s not sure if Cole is letting that happen right now -, it’s unlikely.

For Lavellan’s sake, Bull wishes that his guess will be wrong.

For Lavellan’s sake, Bull wishes that he had a moment to pull her aside and give her a word or two of warning. Just...something to brace herself with. Though he has no idea how he’d fucking say it to her.

It’d break her damn heart.

How do you tell a person that the home they’re going back to isn’t going to let them come back?

That is not a conversation Bull has ever had to have with anyone.

Bull looks at Lavellan again, and is surprised that she’s looking back at him.

She’s stopped walking.

Bull and Varric stop - a few yards behind her, like they have been this entire time to give her some kind of privacy.

The other elves are looking at her, and at him, at Varric. The three of them.

Lavellan keeps looking at him and there’s something brave about her face.

It reminds Bull of a single candle put outside in a storm. It’ll probably go out. It might not. You hope it doesn’t. Your head says it will though.

Lavellan’s voice is too quiet to hear from this far away, over the wind and rustling of dry grass. But Bull can read her lips pretty well.

He does not look away.

Lavellan slowly tilts her head in the direction of the other elves and sign-speaks something to them that Bull can’t quite catch. Even if he did, he probably wouldn’t understand it.

The other elves slide away, glancing back at her every few moments before disappearing into the grasses. Just more wind on the dry plain.

Varric and Bull catch up to her.

“What was that about?” Varric asks.

Lavellan finally looks away from Bull.

“They asked who you were,” Lavellan says. “I told them you were my friends.”

“And they left?” Varric raises an eyebrow.

“Remind me how your Daisy’s clan felt about the rest of your party,” Lavellan says, lips flickering into a quick smile, “The Dalish are insular people. This is known. The Inquisition is accepting of people from every path. This _should also_ be known.”

Varric studies her face, “Their loss.”

“I will tell them as much when we find their camp,” Lavellan agrees, “They’re about to lose out on two of the finest story tellers I have ever met. Speaking of stories, weren’t you supposed to be telling me about the time you found Commander Cullen at the docks with a barrel of fish?”

Lavellan and Varric link hands, her slender one swallowed by Varric’s square palm as they move on.

Bull falls in behind them.

Cole’s voice murmurs in his ear, “She lied.”

“It wasn’t exactly a lie,” Bull says out of the corner of his mouth, faintly, just enough for Cole. Hell, he probably doesn’t even need to say it for Cole to hear it. Creepy kid.

“She said friend. That’s true about Varric,” Cole pauses, sounding a little baffled when he continues; like he doesn’t believe it,” And _me_.”

“Yup.” Bull confirms.

“But not you,” Cole says. “That part when she stopped walking, when she turned around. That isn’t what she said about you. It was you who made her turn back.”

Bull did not know this part. And he probably shouldn’t.

“I won’t say anymore,” Cole says after a moment, sounding a little sullen about it, “She told me not to. And she’s right. You aren’t ready for it, yet. But it’s there. When you’re ready; the last star.”


	17. Chapter 17

It’s a warm, pleasant day and - for once - fucking _quiet_.

Bull almost dozes off for a second, before Vivienne asks him a question. At first Bull thinks that the question is for Solas. The two have been idly talking about magic and passive-aggressively needling each other for the better part of the past two hours.

But he realizes that both the mages are looking at him, Vivienne directly and Solas out of the corner of his eye.

Bull pushes himself up, shaking sleep off.

“What?”

“I said,” Vivienne repeats, “ _Do you love her_?”

“No,” Bull says because there’s really only _one_ her they can mean, and because he doesn’t.

Bull can feel Solas watching him on his other side, and Vivienne’s eyes slowly move over him, searching for a lie. There isn’t one.

Bull doesn’t love the Herald of Andraste (or the would be one, anyway, Bull’s pretty sure that’s a lie and he’s definitely sure that she hates being called that but lets people do it because fighting it would just make a shitty situation into a losing situation).

Vivienne hums through her lips, giving Solas a pointed look as if to say _see_?

Bull hasn’t really been paying attention to their conversation so he doesn’t know what earlier point she’s referencing.

“That,” Solas says to her, “Was not the right question to ask.”

“Oh?”

Solas turns to face Bull, adjusting his staff over his knees, “ _Could_ you love Lavellan?”

And that question makes Bull uncomfortable. He’s actually surprised by how uncomfortable - there’s always that discomfort of _sorry I don’t really care for your kid_ and _sorry this person isn’t actually as likeable as I pretend to think they are_. But it isn’t exactly the same in this situation.

Bull pushes those thoughts away. He isn’t sure if he wants to answer this question.

“Why do you ask?” Bull returns.

“Once the basic essence of an object has been changed,” Solas says, “Is it possible for it to still be seen, to be known and understood, as what it once originally was?”

“And is it possible for the basic quintessence of a thing to be carried along with the new understanding of it?” Vivienne adds on.

It takes Bull a few seconds to decode that.

“That’s fucked up,” He says, leaning his elbows on his knees, the sun making odd warm patterns on his back through the leaves. There’s a breeze that carries the faint smell of livestock and all the things that go with it.

Vivienne laughs and Solas looks like he’d roll his eyes if he weren’t so stiff all the time.

“Have you guys spent the past hour debating if people will like her as a person?” Bull asks.

“No,” Solas says at the same time Vivienne says, “In a manner of speaking, _yes_.”

Solas glares at Vivienne and Vivienne raises an eyebrow, “Is the reason why you were giving such poor answers because you couldn’t read between the lines, darling? Should I have gone easy on you? I do forget it’s been so long since you’ve had educated company, what with most of your companions and callers being of the four legged variety.”

“Either way it’s fucked up,” Bull says. “Of course people are going to like her as a person.”

“I’m not saying that they wouldn’t,” Vivienne says, “ _He_ ’s saying that.”

Bull is actually only a little bit surprised by that.

Lavellan may like Solas, but Solas isn’t exactly the _warmest_ person out there.

“Power is a lens,” Solas says, “It changes how one views things, and in turn, it changes how one is viewed.”

“Okay, sure, but you’ve met the kid, right?” Bull says, “It’s not like she shoves that power in people’s faces. Half the time she tries to forget she has it.”

“Forgetting she has it does not mean she does not have it,” Vivienne says, “Something that all mages know well. You don’t leave a fire out without minding it, the Iron Bull, and if you do, you ought not be surprised when you find it’s burned everything down when you return. Lavellan will be loved, and it isn’t a matter of power. Even the weakest of things can be loved. Power is the bait, and it’s the rest of it that brings people in.”

“Is that spoken from experience, de Fer?” Solas raises an eyebrow.

“Something I’m sure you don’t have,” Vivienne replies, “Or does your court of woodland creatures often pay you homage out of reverence for your powers of walking up right and doing basic mathematics?”

“People are going to like her or not like her,” Bull says before the two can get back into their passive aggressive pissing contest, “And that’s fine. Because she’s a person. And there’s no one out there who’s liked by everyone.”

“Ah, but she is _not_ just a person anymore,” Solas says, “She’s the human’s Herald of Andraste and she is the key to fixing the Breach.”

“Can she die?” Bull asks.

Solas raises an eyebrow, “The Anchor will most likely kill her, yes.”

“Not what I asked,” Bull says, “Can she die?”

“Yes,” Solas tilts his head, curious - more like Lavellan than he thinks.

“Then she’s still people,” Bull says, “Still flawed. End of story.”

Vivienne smirks.

“People are going to like her,” Bull finds himself saying, “And it’s not going to be of the glowing thing on her hand.”

“They’ll come for the hand,” Vivienne says, brushing her hand over the white of her robes, “They’ll come for the Inquisition and the possibility it could possess, but they will stay because she will win them over.”

Vivienne raises an eyebrow at Solas, “She won _you_ over. Or was I imagining you tucking her into bed like a child?”

“I never said that I was not fond of her,” Solas replies, primly, “I said that it was unlikely that _others_ would see her as she is as time progresses. People have a habit of creating impossible myths around the reality of a person.”

Bull gets ready to tune them out, he isn’t in the mood to discuss people’s brains, when he hears the sound of running.

Bull turns his head and hears Lavellan’s laughter from behind him, her feet carrying her close and fast. The only sound is the movement of grass and her voice.

Bull jerks forward a little, grunting as Lavellan throws herself onto his back, body draping over him as her arms lock around his neck. Bull raises a hand to tug at her arms so she doesn’t choke him on accident.

Lavellan’s mouth is a glittering crescent at the base of his neck, just against the bone there, as she smiles and laughs, the rest of her body falling and resting against his. He can feel the hammering of her heart through both her chest and his, the expanding of her belly as she sucks in breaths, and the sharp jut of her chin pressed against his back.

“You will never guess what I’ve found,” Lavellan says to them, pushing up with her arms so that she can hook her chin over Bull’s shoulder, “What _we’ve_ found.”

“We?”

Lavellan’s stag stomps in the distance, audible even from this far away. Bull turns, Lavellan still hanging off of him to look.

“When the hell did you go and fight a bear without anyone noticing?”

“You were all talking and being friendly,” Lavellan says. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Solas and Vivienne snort under their breaths when she says _friendly_.

Bull grunts, standing up with her still hanging off his back. Her legs swing for a moment before she locks them around his waist. Her legs barely manage to go around.

Bull hefts her up, he feels her slide over his back as she scrambles to keep her head over his shoulder.

“Well let’s go skin the thing, and tell me how you did it without making a sound,” Bull says, “Maybe you could teach Krem how to shut up during a fight.”


	18. Chapter 18

The Iron Bull is not a man who is easily surprised. Krem has known him for years, but it doesn’t take years to understand this about him.

He’s trained to study people and know them inside and out, to predict every move, to know every thought, to read them and know them like a Chantry sister knows the Chant of Light. The Iron Bull, given enough time, will know you better than _you_ know you. He’s that good.

By that standard, it’s also very hard to disappoint him.

It takes a special kind of person to do either.

Krem’s seen the Chief truly surprised only a few times in his life, and most of them are coming around because of a certain specific someone and they’re coming around faster and faster because of her.

The first time is when the Chief and the Herald of Andraste meet each other face to face. Sort of.

They’re fighting Vint’s on the Storm Coast and the Chief had been nagging at him for details on what the Herald was like and getting pissy when Krem couldn’t give him details like how many times she blinked or what shade of pink her mouth was or how big were her pupils approximately, because Krem isn’t a _freak_ like the Chief is.

(“She’ll come when she comes,” Krem said.

“The Vints are here,” the Chief sounded disappointed.

“She’s an important person, sort of,” Krem replied, “Also their base is about half a week’s ride give or take. And I bet you she isn’t coming alone.”

The Chief sighed and muttered something about a terrible idea.

“Trust me,” Krem said, “What’s the worst that can happen? Besides this is better than just stalking her from afar like a nutter.”)

A bolt of lightning in the shape of an arrow flew right over the Chief’s head, perfectly, between his horns, and cooked a line straight through three Tevinter soldiers who are coming up the shore line.

Krem and the Chief turned around and there she was, sliding down the steep cliff side, like she wouldn’t break her neck doing that kind of thing, and the Chief had this half-grin half-slack-jawed-gape on his face. Krem didn’t blame him. He was surprised, too.

She was a good fifty paces and more away, sliding down a cliff in heavy rain with low visibility, and no idea who’s who exactly (though Krem supposes that with the words _Qunari_ and _Tevinter_ it wouldn’t be too hard to parse out who the Chief is versus who the enemies are) and she still managed that perfect line up straight through the Chief’s horns.

That’s _impressive_. That’s worth the stupid look on the Chief’s dumb mug.

Still, they have a reputation to uphold so Krem had to suck in a breath and yell, “Dick down, _horns up, Chief!”_ and the man got it back under control in time to send a spell caster and a soldier with a knife flying with a sweep of his maul.

Afterwards as Krem is watching over clean up, he saw Lavellan trotting away from the Chief. Lavellan gave him a curt nod, wet hair stuck to her face and her neck as she made her way back to the dwarf, the Seeker, and Solas.

The Chief was looking at her back with that same slack-jawed look and Krem really should’ve taken a hint from that.

Krem doesn’t get a chance to see that expression again until after Haven, when they bring her back alive, and the Chief looked at her body like something the Maker made right that instant and put down on that exact spot. He looked at her body like he couldn’t believe it, like he didn’t want to believe it.

It would mean too many things, Krem realizes in hindsight. It meant too many things at once.

The next time it happens, Krem is fairly sure he isn’t meant to see it, but Lavellan slaps the Chief across the face and says something in a low voice before walking away, head held high and expression cold like the ice she sometimes leaves behind on a battlefield.

The Chief is looking at her back with that look of shock on his face and Krem is willing to bet that the Chief was trying to tell her about why he wasn’t going to sound the retreat.

Krem’s grateful that he did, but Krem would have understood if he didn’t. The Chargers are like a family, but they’re also mercenaries.

Krem knows exactly his place and purpose and that both are expendable. They’re just lucky that they have a payer who cares.

The Chief probably shouldn’t have been surprised by that one.

The next time it happens, Krem is still waiting for the Chief to give an answer - in words, not exactly formal-like, but some kind of verbal acknowledgement - to the question he asked a couple of weeks ago, and they’re getting ready to see Lavellan off to Halamshiral.

The Chargers will be posted around the palace with the rest of the Inquisition’s forces, waiting for the Inquisitor’s command to go in. Krem’s not really surprised that none of the Chargers will actually be infiltrating.

Lavellan walks out of de Fer’s chateau in her military uniform, looking surprisingly confident for someone in her position. Dalish told him that Lavellan’s actually really nervous about this whole thing. Krem’s impressed that she’s managing to keep it under wraps.

Krem would be nervous too if he were going to a site of mass genocide of his race.

The Chief is standing by the carriage, waiting for Lavellan to get in.

He gives her a hand up as she climbs in after Cassandra and Varric, and this look of surprise crosses his face -

“Boss, are you,” The Chief’s throat bobs, “Are you wearing _scent_?”

In the afternoon light Krem sees the edges of Lavellan’s face turn a faint pink as she looks away and slips into the carriage.

The Chief just stares after her, hand still held up as she moves to close the carriage door.

Dalish has grabbed onto Skinner and turned around, but that doesn’t hide the fact that she’s about to bust her gut laughing. Skinner’s face is twitching in an alarmingly cheerful manner. Krem feels laughter burn up his own chest.

“Yes,” Lavellan says closing the door, her hair hiding most of her face as she keeps her face away from the Chief. But Krem can see it just fine. Just before she closes the door completely she pauses, and Krem sees her bite her lip for a second before asking, “Do you like it?”

Bull swallows, coughs a little, “Uh. Yeah. It’s - it’s nice.”

Lavellan closes the door but not before Krem sees her blush spread - not really deepen, just spread - and her bright smile that’s still turned away from the boss.

The carriage goes off and Bull stands there dumb-struck. Dalish gives in as soon as the carriage is a reasonable distance away and starts crying, slowly collapsing onto the ground in actual tears.

Skinner _smiles_.

Krem starts coughing from all the mixed feelings kicking around his chest. Skinner should never smile that wide but also the Chief looks so _stupid_.

“It’s _nice_ ,” Stitches says, “An entire book of languages in that head, travelled the world over, and all you could think to say was _nice_?”

Grim snorts and hauls Dalish up, throwing her over his shoulder to carry her to their own ride to the palace. Dalish is still crying.

Bull grunts and gives a half-hearted swipe at Stitches and Rocky as they pass, “It is nice. Nice is a good word for it.”

“You’re a fool,” Skinner says. Bull doesn’t take a swing at her because he’s still got some brains left. “But  you’re a fool who makes her happy.”

The Chief’s face does a complex mix of changes that make Krem wonder if his face hurts. Krem walks up to him and smacks him on the back.

“Well,” Krem says, “You’re still a nutter, but apparently she likes that. So let the stalking from afar commence, Chief.”


	19. Chapter 19

Bull wakes up to the familiar - and unfamiliar in this situation - sounds of kissing. He slowly opens his eye and sees Lavellan and Cole, faces bent towards each other, eyes open.

“It’s different,” Cole says as they pull apart, sounding frustrated, “It doesn’t feel that way when you kiss Dorian.”

Cole frowns, eyebrows pulling together.

Lavellan tilts her head, “What does it feel like?”

“A joke,” Cole answers, “A knife, pointed inwards, a secret smile that’s laced with the bitterness of something not ripe. The sweet rot of something already lost to summer. Why does it hurt when you love each other so much?”

“A kiss isn’t about love, Cole,” Lavellan says. “Not really.”

“You’re going to confuse him,” Bull says, throwing an arm over his eyes and stretching his legs out. Morning sun hits just right through the window in a nice square over his stomach. He’s surprised that they haven’t been woken up - or at least, Lavellan hasn’t been called off to do something. No one would care if Bull were to laze around all day.

Lavellan shushes him and Bull grunts, cracking his jaw as he yawns.

“No,” Cole’s voice is a slow drawn out thing that feels out the meaning of the word, “But isn’t it? People who love each other kiss all the time.”

“And people who don’t love each other do much more than that, too,” Lavellan replies. “A kiss isn’t always a kiss.”

“It’s a joke, when it’s Dorian,” Cole says, “For the both of you. Why?”

Bull hears Lavellan’s intake of breath, her hesitation.

“He reads people’s _minds_ , Boss,” Bull says, “You aren’t outing Pavus to all of Thedas by telling the kid.”

He can _feel_ Lavellan’s look of disapproval. Bull grins at the ceiling, eye still covered. Lavellan sighs.

“Dorian doesn’t like women, Cole,” Lavellan says.

“But he loves you,” Cole replies immediately.

“Yes, but - that’s different. I mean like as in the way Bull likes red headed people,” Lavellan says, “Or the way Sera likes Qunari women, or the way a lot of people look at Bull or Cullen.”

“You caught that, did you?” Bull asks.

He imagines her rolling her eyes.

“Was it supposed to be _hard_? Cole, do you understand what I mean?”

“Fumbling hands in the dark, yes, yes, and yes, closer and closer, the dawn rapidly approaches, a brilliant blaze, forbidden and sacred, yes.” Cole makes a frustrated sound, “I understand, but I don’t. Why is it a joke?”

“Because not everyone knows that Dorian likes men, Cole,” Lavellan says. “And he’d like to keep it that way. But when people think he and I are together in that way, it’s amusing. It’s ironic. Because he does love me and I do love him, and maybe if we were both born differently - in a different life, in a different world, if we were different people - maybe we could even be like that. But in this one the answer is no. In this one Dorian is assumed to be the lover of the Herald of Andraste, Inquisitor of Thedas, a position most people would kill for, and it isn’t real.”

Bull’s heard those rumors. They’re stupid and they’re funny, and they’re kind of sad because she’s right.

If Pavus and Lavellan had met as different people maybe they could’ve been something. But then again, they would have been different people. They love each other for who they are now.

“And for you, why is it a joke for you?” Cole asks, curiosity and confusion and urgency in his voice. “Why does he taste like rotten things when he is the step of spring, flowers and grass and pages rustling like tall reeds in the wind and sunlight in speckled patterns across your face and morning mist that slides through your fingers?”

Lavellan is quiet. Bull uncovers his eye and looks at them.

Her mouth is a faint line, her head turned down towards her hands, toes curled as she bends inwards.

Bull sits up and Cole looks at him with his watery eyes underneath his straw hair.

“Some people,” Bull says, “Don’t like anything at all, Cole. And a lot of the time, people think that’s worse than liking the wrong parts.”

“But how can the parts be wrong if they’re what you like?” Cole says, “And why would not liking anything be worse?”

“It just is,” Lavellan says. “It’s not logical, Cole. It’s just - something about people. Cultures.”

Cole ducks his head, murmuring so fast under his breath that Bull doesn’t catch much of it. He breaks off to look at Bull.

“And some people,” Bull continues, folding his arms behind his head, “Like everything.”

Cole studies him, and then Lavellan.

“But it isn’t the same,” Cole says, “When you kissed me it wasn’t the same as when you kiss Dorian and when you kiss Dorian it isn’t the same as when you kiss the Iron Bull.”

“A _kiss_ ,” Lavellan says, turning to Bull with that special quirk of her mouth that makes Bull think of cats laughing, “Isn’t _always_ a kiss.”

Lavellan twists abruptly, settling over his stomach as she swoops down and presses her mouth to his. Bull looks back into her laughing eyes, eyebrow raised. He doesn’t kiss back, but he doesn’t pull away, either.

“That isn’t how you kiss the Iron Bull,” Cole says as Lavellan sits back. Bull sits up, leaning on one hand and the other hand resting on the side of her thigh, thumb drawing a circle just underneath the hem of her night dress. Cole laughs, an airy, whispery thing.

“No,” Lavellan says, smile dancing, “That is not how I kiss the Iron Bull. I told you, Cole, a kiss isn’t always a kiss.”

“Yeah, now give me a proper one,” Bull says and Lavellan laughs.

She leans in close, both her and his eyes sliding closed. Her forehead knocks against his, the tips of their noses brushing. She exhales over his mouth. Bull takes it in, elbow loosening as he leans back a little. She follows the movement keeping their foreheads pressed together, and there’s an inaudible rush of her hair sweeping over the both of them. Bull grins, feels his lips pull back over his teeth. Her eyelashes tickle his skin with her laughter.

“ _That_ ,” Lavellan says, forehead still pressed against his, “Is a kiss.”

Bull squeezes the back of her neck.

“A breath,” Cole says, “A single breath that rushes and sighs, quiet and the sound of the whole world moving, the sound of the mountains against the sky, feet on the edge of the world, arms spread, not a leap or a jump or a plunge but a single step into the word _hello,_ and falling into the ocean without a single ripple. _Andaran ati’shan_ , _Taashath-saam_. A kiss without lips.”


	20. Chapter 20

Cullen hears their voices coming down the battlements, he’s almost surprised. Then again, the boy doesn’t sleep that anyone knows of, and the Inquisitor is fonder of odd hours than almost everyone here. Lavellan is making her way from the Iron Bull’s room, Cole at her side, their voices clearing as they draw closer.

“Cole, I told you,” Lavellan says, “I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about that. _I don’t have a taste for it_. Would you ask a blind man what he thought of Solas’ mosaic? Or a deaf man’s opinion on the song sung at the tavern? If you really want to know about sex and courtship and such you ought to ask an expert.”

Cullen coughs a little, laughter sparking in the back of his throat. Lavellan catches his eye. Cullen doesn’t look away. They’re the ones making their way towards him, and the Inquisitor has never really been secretive of her conversations with anyone.

Lavellan’s eyes glitter in the morning light and she winks at him, quick and playful, the edges of her mouth flickering upwards before she turns back to Cole.

“You ought to ask Cassandra about it.”

Cullen turns his head into the collar of his coat - which is good for something side from occasionally keeping his neck warm, like hiding a burst of inappropriately loud laughter - and muffles his snickers into its ruff.

(The coat was a nice gesture from Josephine, but really it isn’t going to do much in keeping him warm when it goes _over_ the armor, is it? It’s for looks, he supposes. A lot of things in the Inquisition are.)

“That’s a joke,” Cole says sounding a little cross as he stops walking, “Because you want me to leave you alone for a while. But you aren’t wrong. She knows more than we understand, and it isn’t from a book.”

He’s gone between heartbeats and Cullen is always a little dazed in the wake of his presence. Lavellan shakes her head, closing the distance between them and leaning against the stone to look out over the bridge and into the mountains.

“Good morning, Cullen,” She says.

“Good morning, Lavellan,” Cullen replies, “Early morning?”

Lavellan’s mouth quirks up, “I could say the same for both of us, if you actually slept at all last night. Did you?”

“I’m afraid you’ve caught me,” Cullen says, “An hour, perhaps two. Not my worst night.”

“No,” Lavellan’s voice lowers, “I imagine not.”

She glances at him, briefly. Cullen waits, half-expects her to say something. She hasn’t pushed since he threw the box at her on accident. But she’s always been there when he felt he was wavering. Her and Cassandra.

Sometimes he’s not sure if he’d have the strength to go on as he has without the both of them. They are more than he deserves, really.

But Lavellan doesn’t press.

“Every time I look out over this bridge,” She says, bracing her hands on the cool stone, eyes closing as she tips her head up, “I think about the next time I ride out. Will it be the last time? Will I ever again be looking inwards, towards Skyhold? Or is it the last time I see this view? Do you ever think that, Cullen?”

Cullen doesn’t have much opportunity to leave Skyhold, and every time he does it’s not for very long. Cullen honestly welcomes those excursions, being able to leave. For him it’s more of a relief. A reprieve.

He supposes that for Lavellan, where every excursion means something heavy - revelation and revolution - it’s a different story.

“Sometimes when you ride out with the words _I’m going to slay a dragon_ on your lips,” Cullen replies. “Though I suppose that’s a sentiment many people share.”

Lavellan laughs, short and light, smiling with her eyes closed at the sky, “Ah, but usually I’m bringing along the people who dread those words most. Do you wish you were one of them?”

Lavellan opens her eyes and slants a look in his direction.

“Do you wish - do you wish you were as you were before, Cullen? Do you miss it?”

Cullen doesn’t think she means _templar_.

“Do I miss being in the thick of it, you mean,” Cullen says, “Being in the action, on active duty rather than behind a desk because I’m too important to die?”

Lavellan’s answering smile is sad.

“Yes,” She says, cold wind taking the word from her mouth and stirring her hair.

“All the time,” Cullen says, “It must sound terrible to hear, I suppose I should feel bad about saying it. But I do miss it. I miss the fighting. The movement. I miss putting things together. I miss _walking_. I miss the purpose of it. Granted there’s purpose here, but.”

Cullen gives her his own sort of sad smile.

“I don’t think I need to explain the differences between the two to you.”

“No,” Lavellan smiles, “You don’t. I don’t know what I’m going to do, Cullen. When all of this ends. Josephine is ever optimistic for me. Of course we’re all focused on now - it’s not quite a hand to mouth thing, but there isn’t much room for future thoughts when we aren’t certain there will be one. But sometimes, sometimes she tells me of all the places she wants me to go. The people I must meet and have luncheon with or sit with for tea. Oh, Cullen. I don’t know how I’ll cope.”

Lavellan turns to the mountains again.

“Sometimes, and you mustn’t tell anyone this Cullen, it’s not quite an order but I’ll make it one if I have to and you’d have to forgive me that abuse of power and friendship, but sometimes I almost hope that it is my last ride out.”

Cullen turns to fully face her, “Lavellan.”

“It sounds morbid,” Lavellan’s eyes flicker under her eyelids, “But, _Gods_ , Cullen. To go from slaying dragons, uncovering ruins, finding these lost pieces of time to tea and gossip and small talk? We all know I was never made for that, and no one’s ever expected me to be.”

Lavellan breathes in deep and opens her eyes to the sky.

“Sometimes parts of me are just screaming for me to run. Bolt. Just get on my stag and ride, ride, ride and never look back. I’d find someplace far away and disappear. No Inquisition, no titles, no courtesies to be made, no politics to consider, no Game to play, no considerations of anyone else to be had, no deadlines, no schedule, no appearances to hold. Just me as I am and as I wish to be.”

“What stops you?” Cullen asks.

Lavellan’s eyes fall closed, her lips moving quietly.

“The way you look at me,” Lavellan answers, eyes closed. “The way you and Dorian and Cole and Cassandra and Josephine and Sera and Krem and Blackwall and Vivienne and Solas and Leliana and Varric all look at me. Not everyone, but you. Them. Dalish and Stitches and Dagna and Harding and Rylen.”

“And the Iron Bull?” Cullen asks. Because he knows the two are - close. Cullen wouldn’t say lovers, but certainly not _friends_.

Cullen has never looked at Cassandra or Josephine the way Lavellan looks at the Iron Bull. Perhaps his life is all the poorer for it.

Lavellan gasps softly, mouth parting like he’s given her a shock.

“No,” Lavellan says after a moment, “Because he would let me go. I know he would. It’s not the way he looks at me, no.”

Lavellan exhales.

“It’s the way he sleeps,” She says, “If that means anything at all. The way he sleeps when I open the door and slide in between the covers, the way he sleeps when I startle awake at night, the way he sleeps when I leave the room in the morning. I don’t think I could explain it.”

“I don’t think you have to,” Cullen says, “Your voice tells it all.”

“Does it?” Lavellan’s hands fall away from the stone and she steps back.

“Yes,” Cullen answers, “I’m glad for you. The both of you.”

Lavellan smiles, steps close and kisses his cheek.

“Someday,” Lavellan whispers, breath warm against his skin, “There will be someone who will bring you the kind of peace you deserve, Cullen. I don’t doubt it.”

She steps away and moves to walk past him, stops.

“Cullen?”

“Yes, Inquisitor?”

She turns and looks out at the mountains.

“When the time comes that I don’t come riding in over that bridge,” She says, squeezing the hand with the Anchor, “Don’t let him come after me. One of us is going to have to survive me.”


	21. Chapter 21

“So, not that this isn’t a good look for you, it is,” Bull says, looking down at her, “But why?”

Lavellan looks up at him, knees up about her ears.

“Would you believe that I fell and was too lazy to get up properly?” Lavellan tilts her head, an odd picture considering that her legs are flung up to frame her face and she’s up side down, arms spread on either side.

“Is that what you want me to believe?” Bull asks.

Lavellan hums, squinting her eyes at the sky before nodding, “Sure, let’s go with that story.”

“You want a hand up?” Bull asks.

“Yes,” Lavellan says, “Please be gentle. I think I might have bruised something.”

“When you fell?”

“Yes,” Lavellan says as Bull reaches down and grasps her hand to pull her up slowly. She made a poor job of hiding the damage from her fall.

“Remind me where you fell from?”

“High,” Lavellan says.

There aren’t any buildings or trees close by.

“From high,” Bull repeats.

“Right,” Lavellan nods, moving slowly. “I’m glad that we’ve gotten that sorted. Which way is it to Haven?”

Lavellan’s sense of direction, as with most Dalish elves who’ve spent their lives in the wilderness of Thedas going off the beaten path, has an impeccable sense of direction. She mostly chooses to use it to meander in long sweeping arcs to explore more, but Bull does know that her sense of direction is spot on at all times.

He’s kind of worried at this point.

“That way,” Bull gestures towards Haven, “It’s about an hour’s walk.”

“Huh,” Lavellan says, “It didn’t _feel_ like an hour’s walk.”

She stands there for a moment then sighs. “The walk wont start itself will it.”

“Nope.”

“And the distance between us and Haven wont grow shorter, you think?”

“Unlikely,” Bull replies.

Lavellan continues to stare off into the direction he pointed before sighing and starting to gingerly trudge towards Haven.

Bull takes the opportunity to subtly check the back of her head for blood. He can’t tell much, Lavellan’s hair is a mass of beads, braids, bones, feathers, and teeth on a good day and messed up from her fall from “high up” there’s even less sense to it.

“I’m not hurt,” Lavellan says as he follows after her. “The snow cushioned most of the fall.”

“Sure you aren’t,” Bull replies, checking her walk.

“I’m just a little dazed from all that blood rushing to my head is all,” She continues. “I was a little silly for a while.”

“Nah,” Bull falls in line directly behind her, she’s not exactly walking straight but she doesn’t do that normally anyway so he’s not sure if this is something he should be concerned about or not. He isn’t a healer though he should probably know more about injuries considering how many he’s had.

“What are you doing an hour’s walk away from Haven, not that I’m _ungrateful_ for your help - though I’m sure I would have managed something eventually when I got too cold or too tired, I mean, I wouldn’t have been too lazy to move _all day_ , it was just at the time I felt that it wasn’t such a bad idea to just stay in that position and all - but most people aren’t taking walks an hour away from Haven.”

Bull likes to take long walks, look at the Breach from different angles, stuff like that. Also it’s probably a good idea if he weren’t around Haven all the time. People get nervous. He makes people nervous.

Sure it probably doesn’t look good that he goes off by himself where no one can see him for a few hours every few days, but most folks also feel like they can breathe a little if he isn’t in the same line of sight as they are.

There’s more than one reason why he turned down having the Chargers set up inside Haven’s make-shift gates.

“I like long walks sometimes,” Bull says, “The snow, not so much, but the air is clean. Doesn’t smell like pigs and shit. And people.”

Lavellan turns and looks at him over her shoulder for a moment, “People do smell terrible. Do you think Fereldans ever take a bath?”

“Maybe they share the water with their dogs,” Bull answers.

“Would that mean Orlesians share it with their cheese?”

Bull snorts a laugh, then quickly reaches out to steady her elbow when she wobbles and almost goes down.

“The snow,” Lavellan says as she straightens herself up, “Is deceptively deep.”

The snow is up to her ankles. She just slipped.

“I stepped on a rock under the snow,” She says. “I’m really not injured.”

“Dumb rocks,” Bull says, “Hiding like cowards.”

“Exactly,” Lavellan nods, “Show yourself, rock. Face me with honor.”

Bull can’t help but smile a little.

“What were you doing an hours walk from Haven?”

“Also taking a walk,” Lavellan says, “Because people _do_ smell but they’re also loud.”

Qunari don’t hear any better than humans or dwarves, and while they do see better than humans they don’t have much on elves.

And people, Bull has learned over the years, are never as careful with their tongues as they should be. And Lavellan, in particular, is very good at not being seen when she doesn’t want to be. For someone with a glowing hand and obvious Dalish clothes and markings, she blends into the snow and wood like she was born there.

Bull doesn’t need to ask her what she heard, what she hears, because he knows.

People are especially bad at shutting up when drunk. Or angry.

And something about Bull tends to make people go either way.

He’s got a gift, according to Rocky.

If you ask Krem he’s got a fat mouth.

“It’s probably because they’re used to talking to dogs,” Bull says, “You ever whisper at a dog? No.”

Lavellan snorts, looking back at him again and smiling.

Bull smiles back.

“You want to walk together next time?” He asks, “In case you fall from high up again.”

The highest points of her cheekbones turn faint pink.

“Maybe,” She says, not looking away. And that’s fair. “As Sera sometimes says, don’t come to me, I’ll come to you. Or something like that. I mean, you can always come to me, I don’t mean to sound like you can’t come to me with things, because that would be an incredibly awful thing for me to say. But.”

“I get you,” Bull says. “Don’t worry about it.”


	22. Chapter 22

They’d got her wrong, but that was their loss.

“They want me to _prove myself_ ,” Lavellan is seething, “I _am the First of Clan Lavellan_. I have my marks. They’ve _met me at gatherings_. I am a disciple of Dirthamen and Ghilan’nain. They _know me_. And they want me to prove myself because I’m not an insular, narrow minded, biased thing? The fate of the entire world at stake and they want me to prove _how Dalish I am_. Ridiculous.”

Bull doesn’t point out that by default, the way she speaks and moves and casts spells now that she’s been exposed to people from literally every walk of life from Par Vollen to Nevarra, Lavellan has lost some of her original Dalish-ness.

“It’s their loss,” Bull says. “That’s what happens when you travel a lot and talk to people.”

“They should know better by now,” Lavellan says, “This is why no one likes us. This is why we aren’t trusted. It’s because of these kinds of attitudes. How can we be expected to grow as a people? To learn and gain experience and develop? How do they expect to keep up with the shems if we refuse to even consider what they’ve come up with?”

Bull doesn’t point out that Lavellan’s clan is rather open minded and even then Lavellan was special among them because she was - extra open minded.

Dalish said it took her years to become that accepting. And she had been traveling with Bull since almost the very start. It was her _goal_ to become open minded. To learn the ways of the world outside of her clan.

Lavellan was just thrown into the deep end.

Bull sometimes thinks that Lavellan would have left her clan from the start. She’s too curious, too open minded, too world-hungry to have stayed with them forever.

People like Lavellan don’t stay at the fringes of the world. They always, inevitably, find their way into the thick of it.

“Are you alright?” Bull asks.

“No,” Lavellan snaps.

“You want me to leave you alone and head back to camp?”

Lavellan pauses, kicks a rock, shoulders slumping a little, “ _No_.”

“You want me to shut up?”

Lavellan draws her shoulders in and bows her head down, “Not really.”

“Alright,” Bull says, “So are you going to do it?”

“Do what?”

“Prove yourself like they asked?”

Lavellan sighs, reaches out and drags her fingers along the side of a dry rock wall.

“Yes,” She says, sounding ashamed and braced for him to judge her like Solas or Vivienne or Cassandra or Sera. Bull isn’t any of them. He won’t judge her for that.

Lavellan is young. She hasn’t gotten to the point in her life yet where she can look at the people she wants to matter and accept it when they shouldn’t.

Lavellan is wise enough not to care about the words from people she doesn’t care about. She just hasn’t learned how to brush off the opinions of the people she _does_ care about, even when it isn’t good for her.

“So, where do we start?” Bull asks.

Lavellan turns and looks at him, eyebrow raised.

“You aren’t going to say anything?”

“Do you _want_ me to?” Bull says, “Because honestly, Boss, I would if I thought it’d change your mind. I don’t think it would, though.”

Lavellan’s mouth quirks up for a brief moment.

“No, it wouldn’t. Are you disappointed in me, Bull?”

“A little,” Bull admits, carefully. Lavellan nods.

“That’s fair,” She says, and then quieter, “I’m disappointed in me, too.”

Lavellan shakes her head and sighs.

“I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up,” Lavellan says, “I should’ve known from the way they looked at you. Even the fact that they were signing more than speaking. I should’ve _known_. I shouldn’t have hoped for more.”

“Alright, let’s not go overboard here,” Bull says, closing the space between them and putting his hand on her shoulder. “It’s fine to hope for the best in people. Alright, chances are you’re wrong. But you don’t want to turn out like me, Boss. I mean, look at me. I’m an asshole.”

Lavellan leans into his touch.

“You aren’t so bad,” Lavellan says. “I bet it doesn’t hurt as much. You probably don’t get as disappointed as I do. As hurt.”

“Again, not bad things.”

“I’m not sure, Bull. From where I’m standing it feels pretty awful. A little pain is fine, but this is.” Lavellan swallows, “This is more than a little.”

“Nah, I’m pretty shitty,” Bull says. “Trust me on that one.”

Sometimes Bull hates the things the Inquisition is doing to her. Sometimes he wonders if the others even see it. Or if they’re ignoring it.

Lavellan closes her eyes and tilts her head back towards the sky.

“The gods took Ghilan’ain as their own,” Lavellan says, “She was devoted. She was _mortal_.”

Lavellan opens their eyes.

“I don’t need their approval,” She says, “But I _want it_.”

Bull squeezes her shoulder.

She swallows.

“We’ll see what they ask for,” She says, “And with luck it won’t be anything too out of the way. The Inquisition comes first. I haven’t forgotten that. But there has to be time for this, too. I said I would do this for all of us. I just helped Orlesian soldiers clean up their own messes. I can help this clan, too.”

“Your people,” Bull says.

“My people,” Lavellan nods and then her eyes slide to him. “But the Inquisitor has no race, the Iron Bull. Lavellan, yes, the Inquisitor, _no_. All nations are my nation, all people are my people.”

“That sounds gross,” Bull says. “There are some assholes out there.”

Lavellan turns to face him, reaching up and squeezing his wrist even as she slides away from him.

“Ah, but they’re _my_ assholes, so it’s alright,” She says, “And the people of the Inquisition will always come first.”


	23. Chapter 23

“We are not hiring a half blind Ox-man and a cripple to get rid of the Marquis.”

Bull’s eye flicks to Lavellan, hooded and almost entirely hidden underneath her cloak. Even with that the absence of her arm shows, and she curls around it, tucking the left side of her body close and turning her face down.

It’s been years. It will take more.

She will, eventually, get used to it.

(Bull knows that there are some things you never get over. The skin heals over the wound, but the ridge of a scar builds and twists and glares at you. A reminder that you will always see, even if it fades with time. A reminder in the back of your head, something you always remember and place there. A hurt that you avoid even when it is already a ghost.)

She will, definitely, get back at the shit who did this.

But for now, Lavellan curls into herself, towards Bull, counting on him to shield her weaker half.

Losing the Anchor cost her more than an arm.

(“Is this what it feels like?” Lavellan shakes, shivers, the rest of her body frozen as Dorian wipes sweat from her face. “Cullen, is this what it feels like?”

“No,” Cullen says, softly, from the doorway.

Lavellan’s voice rasps through her pale, dry mouth, “It keeps calling to me, Cullen. If I could just get to it. _It wants to go home_ , it wants to come back to me. I want to welcome it back. It would all be so beautiful again, Dorian, it could show us so much, it keeps telling me - _Dorian_.”)

Sometimes Lavellan still gasps herself awake at night, choking and clawing at her neck and the right side of her face. She almost took out her own eye once.

(“A thousand things in a single voice,” Lavellan gasps, “ _My_ voice, _my_ eye, _my_ hand, _my_ magic, _my_ will, _my Anchor, you traitorous, power hungry, narrow minded fool of a man_ \- You _dare_ \- “

Bull takes her hand in his own and her sharp fingers - nails blunt, but bones still claws - digs into the meat of his palm as she struggles to fight her way back from that space between Inquisitor and Lavellan and Kadan and da’len.

He doesn’t know how she always makes it back. Bull has only ever been two people at once. And he has only ever been made to make that choice once.

Lavellan makes the choice every time she closes her eyes and casts a spell.)

“Well if you don’t want us to work for you, we won’t,” Bull shrugs. They aren’t hurting for money. There are plenty of other people willing to hire the Chargers.

Besides, Bull didn’t start the Chargers for money.

“A half-blind Ox,” The other man says to his partner, “That assisted in repelling Tevinter forces, finding the Divine’s assassin, and saving Orlais. We’re hiring them. Or would you rather wait for someone _else_ with suitable credentials?”

The whisper of Lavellan’s cloak brushes against Bull’s knuckles. He opens his hand and Lavellan presses against his side, sliding into his shadow.

She lost a lot more than just the Anchor, the arm.

Bull looks down and her eyes are dark and glittering, but she jerks her head down.

They’re taking the job, whether these idiots know that or not.

(Lavellan did not join the Chargers because they’re _his_.)

Bull sends in Krem to finish up the contract work - leave it to a Vint to know his way around contracts - and Lavellan is as silent as she always was next to him.

“They don’t suspect a thing,” Lavellan says as soon as they’re in the clear and with their people again. She throws back the hood.

“Better for you, Boss,” Bull says. “Are you actually coming _with_ us to kick out the squatters?”

“You take the Marquis’ squatters,” Lavellan replies, “And maybe I’ll pop in if you’re taking too long.”

“That assumes that we don’t finish first,” Bull says.

Lavellan smirks at him, “Bull, you _never_ finish first.”

She winks at him, draws her hood up again and walks out of the camp.

“Years have gone by,” Dalish says from where she’s sharpening her knives, or Skinner’s knives. _Someone’s_ knives. Dalish finds sharpening knives calming. “And yet you still have the same foolish look as the young man you never were whenever you look at her.”

“That’s fair, but you have to admit she keeps the spice going in this relationship.”

“If by spice you mean danger, then sure,” Rocky says, “And by danger, I mean the chance that you will literally die within the next hour, then definitely. She does that for sure.”

Rocky isn’t exactly wrong, because while he’s pretty sure they’ll never get so deep into shit as _the Fade_ and fighting against Tevinter abominations - partially because he doesn’t even know how Lavellan would top that on the relative risk-reward scale - Bull is also pretty sure that Lavellan is more than capable of finding them crazy shit to do.

“So this is nice,” Krem says because years, actual years, and he still hasn’t learned how to shut up in the middle of a fight. Bull supposes that Lavellan and the Inquisition aren’t the best influence for that kind of thing because they all had a tendency to smack talk each other in the middle of kicking ass.

Varric liked to write limericks. Shitty limericks.

 _Out loud_.

Bull grunts something like an affirmative because, again - compared to Tevinter extremists with a would-be-God-definitely-an-asshole-narcissist, dragons, and Red Templars, this is about a one on the risk-reward scale - and also something mildly concerning because Krem added more shit to that freak excuse of a weapon and Bull swears the guy is going to put out his back swinging that thing around one day.

Everyone says that Bull’s back is going to go first, but at least he’s swinging around something reasonable.

Bull braces to get hit in the side because there are actual brains in some of the heads he’s knocking together and someone was clever enough to wait for him to be open after a heavy swing.

The hit doesn’t come because a lightning bolt in the shape of an arrows zaps straight through his horns and blasts the one fool here with half a brain rattling around his head into either death or unconsciousness.

Bull turns and Lavellan is there, magic lighting her skin up like the Anchor used to, making her look like stone with cracks and light coming from the inside, and people always forget that mages don’t actually need things to cast at all.

Lavellan’s staff, when it came down to it, was mostly to hit people with.

Lavellan is still good at hitting people - and occasionally impaling them - with her staff, she just tends not to use it as much because you never see an assassin with a giant stick, do you?

“Why is this so familiar?” Krem mutters and ducks because Lavellan isn’t _just_ in the mood for lightning today.

Lavellan streaks ice and lightning in a way that reminds Bull of Solas - though he’d never say it out loud - when it isn’t reminding him of a dragon: lightning sparking from her teeth and frost billowing from her breath and sheening over her skin.

She’s at his side in seconds, covering for him in ways he’s probably gotten spoiled by. Makes it harder when she isn’t with them.

(Lavellan did not _join_ the Chargers.)

“We have what we came for,” Lavellan says, “Finish up.”

Bull nods, and catches Krem and Grim’s eyes.

Within seconds the Chargers go from fucking around to serious and within minutes the fight is over and the throat-cutters are cleaning up.

Lavellan stands still in the middle of it, watching them all.

“Good work,” She says.

“We do our best,” Krem says as he passes, “ _Inquisitor_.”

Lavellan’s lip curves up, sharper and still her, but always that much sharper every time Bull sees it.

She answers his unasked question by flashing a ring at him.

“I need to send this to Leliana,” Lavellan says, “And then I’m going to check on things with Cole.”

Bull doesn’t ask if she means _with_ Cole as in how Cole is doing, or _with_ Cole as in wherever she has Cole watching and listening for her.

“You gonna stay the night?” Bull asks.

“I should be getting a head start,” Lavellan says, but she moves to stand near him anyway, “But you’re opening the casks.”

“With axes,” Bull confirms.

“And there’s no way to close that, is there?”

Bull doesn’t look away, just raises his voice, “Vint, you figure out a way to seal casks with blood magic yet?”

“No,” Krem yells back.

“Well,” Bull grins, “There you go, Boss.”

Lavellan’s teeth spark, “It’d be a shame to waste such a good vintage. Josephine went through so much trouble getting it to me in the first place.”

“The Ambassador gets hives thinking about you living on the land,” Bull says.

“The Ambassador gets hives thinking about people referring to me by anything other than my official titles,” Lavellan replies, “She gets hives thinking about me doing things in general. I probably should feel sorry for making Josephine suffer like that. No one should be making Josephine suffer like that.”

“Ever consider _not_ living on the land, then?”

Lavellan snorts, dark swimming underneath her eyes as she looks up at him.

“You’d be out of a job, Bull. Besides, don’t I always take you to the best fights?”


	24. Chapter 24

“If it had been your Iron Bull,” Blackwall says - as gently and carefully as he can, because he’s hurt her enough already and he’s going to hurt her more later, but right now he just wants her to leave as quietly as she didn’t enter his life - “You would have wanted him to do the same as I.”

Lavellan looks away, guilty, because Blackwall is right.

Lavellan expects the best of the people around her. She doesn’t just expect or demand it, she commands it. When someone fails to live up to that expectation her disappointment falls down and forces them into place. Lavellan’s power as the Inquisitor doesn’t just bend armies to her will, it bends characters to her ideal.

If it had been the Iron Bull - her favorite, and everyone knows it - who had hid this kind of lie, this kind of blood, she would have taken him by the horns and dragged him straight into the face of a tribunal and ordered him to confess every single detail herself.

Hell, she doesn’t let that kind of thing slide with the others, either.

From day one she’s pushed and pushed and pushed Dorian and Solas and Sera and Vivienne and Cassandra and all the rest of them with the firmness of her own beliefs. Lavellan does not abide by a double standard.

But Blackwall is not her favorite. Blackwall is not any of her favorites. Blackwall is her companion, her guard, the man who shields her and holds the line. He is, occasionally, the man she asks advice from when there are no others to ask, and he is the man who, despite everything, remained at the fringes of her life, if not her social circle.

They are not, exactly, friends.

“You would not ask any less from him, or yourself,” Blackwall says.

Lavellan’s eyes squeeze shut.

“You could have told me,” She says, “We could have worked it out together.”

“And you would have reacted just the same,” Blackwall says. It’s tempting to reach out and touch her shoulder through the bars, to take her hand, to touch her chin and look into her face one last time. “There is nothing to work out, here. Here is where I finally do what I should have done years ago. This is where I pay for the suffering I’ve caused.”

“There are other ways,” She takes her lip between her teeth, finally looking back at him. “ _There are thousands of other ways to atone_.”

Her eyes flicker, hot and hurt.

“You’re taking the easy way,” Her hands curl into fists. “You’re here to die. There’s work to be done, there’s people to save. People for _you_ to find and apologize to. People for _you_ to save. People who _you_ must reveal the truth to. But you’re choosing death instead.”

“Yes,” Blackwall answers, quietly.

Lavellan looks into his eyes, holding his gaze even as hers threatens to spill over, hot and stinging.

“You’re wrong,” Lavellan’s breath rasps, “I wouldn’t have had him choose this. I wouldn’t have asked this of him. And I wouldn’t have asked it of you.”

Blackwall doesn’t answer her.

Lavellan has been known to lie.

You wouldn’t expect it from her, not with the way she acts and speaks and carries herself, not with the standards she forcibly drags everyone to meet. But she does.

“You didn’t have to,” Blackwall replies, “I chose this. You didn’t ask me to make a choice. And it isn’t your choice to make. It’s my crime, it is my greed and pride. It was _me_.”

“But you came to me,” Lavellan says, “You came with me. A representative of the Wardens. Everyone we know recognizes you as that. _You have been that for me_. For the Inquisition. And now.”

Lavellan takes a step back, head tipping back just a little - like it does whenever it seems like she’s overwhelmed. Like she can’t breathe, like she needs to raise her head to try and get more air.

“It was a lie, Inquisitor,” Blackwall says, “You’ve killed people for less.”

Lavellan closes her eyes.

“Now is not the time for you to be weak,” Blackwall says, “Now is not the time for you to show your bias, for you to allow things to slide. Now is when you show how strong you’ve become. The Inquisition has never allowed traitors or liars.”

“You are no traitor,” Lavellan says, eyes fluttering closed.

“I lied to you,” Blackwall says, “I continued to lie to you. We both know it. Inquisitor, you’ve never been one to hide from the truth.”

Lavellan takes a breath, loud and echoing even though it’s quiet, and steps back and away from the cell.

“I don’t want to be this,” Lavellan says to him, “Whatever it is you think I’ve become. I do not want to be it. What do you see when you look at me, Blackwall? Someone who would abandon those she cares for? Cut them loose without hesitation? Someone who would sacrifice people like pawns and weigh them like gold for reputation? _You were my friend_.”

“You already speak in past tense.”

Lavellan’s body goes rigid and her eyes flinch back from him.

“You are that person,” Blackwall says, “You are the _Inquisitor of Thedas_. You have to stand above it all, Lavellan. And everyone will be watching to make sure you do. _He is watching to make sure you do_.”

Lavellan’s eyes sharpen, just like that.

“Don’t bring him into this. He has nothing to do with this.”

“As long as he’s with you he is everything to do with this,” Blackwall says. “Everyone around you - everything we do is a reflection onto you. We have to be better. We have to be beyond reproach. And that is something I can’t be. I can’t quit, I can’t change my views, I can’t renounce any beliefs or way of life. I was fucked up from the start and the only way out was this.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Lavellan’s breath is a hiss, “Speak of him, of any of them like that. _You are fine as you are_. I love you all for who you are.”

“No,” Blackwall replies, “You love us for who we’re becoming with your influence. You liked us before, but now you love us.”

Lavellan’s eyes flash.

“You liked him when he was an honest spy,” He says, “But you love him now that he’s become _your_ spy. And he’s watching you, just like you watch the rest of us. _Our actions and our behaviors impact more than just people’s lives_ , Inquisitor. Your reputation is your weight in gold and dragon scales. If you fail to be who we all expect you to be at this moment you will lose it all. _Thedas cannot risk that_.”

Lavellan surges forward, a tide and a stampede that comes to a soundless frozen stop right in front of him.

“I am not what you say I am,” Lavellan’s breath mists in between them, “And I will never become that. But Rainier, I promise you - _I can be so much worse_. You aren’t going to die, Tom Rainier. Mark my words. I will drag you out of your cowards death kicking and screaming and swearing and make you _watch_ how I don’t give a _damn_ about what people think of me and my people. I don’t care _who_ I disappoint. I will be _myself_ and no one will _ever_ take that from me. I don’t care who loves or hates me for it. You all came to me before I had a _reputation_ , and by the Dread Wolf I will make you all see this through with me to the end and I don’t care what I have to do to make it so. You will not die Tom Rainier, even if I have to snatch you from Falon’din’s hands with my bare hands.”


	25. Chapter 25

“Take an egg,” Cassandra isn’t quite sure if Lavellan is serious or not but the woman continues to hold out an egg to her. Cassandra, for the lack of a better alternative - or a quicker one - takes the egg in her fingers. It’s warm, almost hot.

“Now put it up to your face,” Lavellan says. Cassandra gives Lavellan a _look_. Lavellan just continues to look back at her, expectantly, so Cassandra sighs and holds the egg up to her face. “No, not like that, put it against your bruise. Eggs help bruises.”

Cassandra puts the egg against her bruise, and the warmth does feel good but Cassandra half expects that Lavellan is playing a trick on her.

Lavellan nods once, then sits down on the wooden bench in the shade of the wall, puts a small sack next to her and pulls out another egg. Lavellan holds the egg in her hand before she starts to peel it.

“It probably wouldn’t be appropriate for me to put this egg where my bruises are,” Lavellan says with a quick flicker of her mouth.

“How’s your - “ Cassandra doesn’t know how to politely ask people how their asses feel after they were knocked onto them because a dragon happened to be in the area.

“My ass has had better days,” Lavellan answers when Cassandra fails to continue. “It thanks you for asking.”

Cassandra snorts a laugh under her breath and sits next to Lavellan on the bench. Inside the bag are two more eggs, a small chunk of cheese wrapped in waxed paper, some remarkably uncrushed grapes, and what is either a very large and out of season fig or pomegranate.

Lavellan gestures at Cassandra to help herself. Cassandra breaks off a bunch of grapes with one hand.

“Is there any particular reason why you’re here?” Cassandra asks.

She’s fairly certain that Lavellan knows she’s never been one for small talk. Cassandra also likes to think that they’ve worked together, spoken to each other, relied on each other enough that she can be this straightforward without feeling guilty about it.

“I can’t just come to see one of my closest and most trusted advisors just because?” Lavellan teases. “For all you know I could’ve just come to hear you tell me a story. Or to give you the eggs.”

“You could have,” Cassandra says, breaking a few grapes off with her teeth as she rolls the egg against her cheek with her other hand, “But you didn’t. What’s on your mind, Inquisitor?”

Lavellan bites into her egg, and Cassandra is used to this, too.

“I wanted to ask your advice,” Lavellan says, finishing her egg in two more neat bites before reaching into the bag and pulling out - it is - a fig. She tosses it between her hands. “I wanted to talk to you about the Iron Bull.”

Cassandra raises an eyebrow, because they’ve spoken about the Iron Bull before. Lavellan always asks everyone else about everyone else, especially everyone new.

“As I recall,” Cassandra says, “You never cared for anyone else’s opinions on the Iron Bull before.”

“I do care,” Lavellan says, “I just don’t pay them any heed.”

“And what changed?”

Lavellan stops tossing the fig.

“Ah,” Cassandra abruptly understands. “He’s still the same man, as far as I’m concerned. Why? Has he changed in your eyes?”

“Yes,” Lavellan runs her thumb over the fig, drawing a line down the center. “No. I didn’t think - I knew. But I didn’t really _think_ he would have done it.” Lavellan closes her eyes, drags her teeth over her lower lip before releasing her breath. “I knew that he was the Qun’s. I _knew_ where his loyalties were for the most part. We all walked into this knowing he was the Qun’s spy, that he was taking orders from them, that he was reporting back to them.”

“He told you that on day _one_ ,” Cassandra says, “But that did not stop you.”

Lavellan wasn’t even the Inquisitor, then.

“I knew that he wouldn’t have called that retreat,” Lavellan says, “In my head I knew that.”

“But your heart wanted it to be different,” Cassandra says. “You wanted him to be a better man.”

“Better, or different?” Lavellan sighs, the fig rolling towards her fingertips, almost falling save for the soft crook of her fingers. “He’s right. We did lose a powerful ally.”

“But we kept something more important,” Cassandra says. “It is true that we are an army, and we are out classed against our enemy in many ways. But the Inquisition must stand for something. And if we do not stand for our own people, what right do we have to claim to any morals or higher ground? This is war, Inquisitor. But we must always remember what we fight for.”

“Tactically I know I shouldn’t have told him to do that,” Lavellan squeezes her eyes shut. “We all know that tactically I made a mistake. Is it fair for me to talk about sacrifice and loss and the greater good if I’m willing to throw away one of our greatest advantages for a hundred or so mercenaries?”

“A hundred or so friends,” Cassandra says, “Friends who will stay with you and remember this, spread word of this to everyone, compared to an enemy who is only your friend because of a greater threat to us all. Tactically it was the poorer choice, but that does not mean we have lost. And this isn’t what you wanted to talk about.”

“No,” Lavellan says, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees, looking ahead towards the closed tavern window. Cassandra wonders if Bull is on the other side like he normally is, listening. Or if he’s gone elsewhere; perhaps he’s at one of his tea parties with Josephine or having a chess match with Cullen. “What should I do about him?”

“Do?”

“He isn’t the same,” Lavellan says. “He’s changed. It’s - it’s harder. I don’t know where things are with him. Does he hate what I’ve made him become - in his eyes? Resent me? Does he regret it? What does he see when he looks at the world without the Qun dictating for him?”

“Has he been acting different?”

“No. Yes,” Lavellan cups the fig between her hands and presses her thumbs to her forehead. “I don’t know if I’m imaging it or not.”

“I’m not as close to him as you are,” Cassandra says, “No one is as close to him in the way you are. I cannot tell you what I think I see or don’t see.”

“But you have Cullen,” Lavellan says. Cassandra blinks.

“Cullen?”

Lavellan turns and looks at her.

“I broke Bull of the Qun, and I hold him there. You broke Cullen from Lyrium, and you’re keeping him there. Does he ever look at you and hate you for taking that from him?”

“Absolutely, at his worst moments,” Cassandra replies instantly. “Parts of him, the parts of him that are forever bent to the will of the Lyrium, aching for it, loathe me and everything I’ve put him through. But the rest of him wants to be free of it. The rest of him understands that he asked me to do this for him, that I do it because I care for him. We both know that we want him to be _himself_ again. It’s a different situation, Inquisitor. The Iron Bull never knew he wanted this.”

“Does he want this?”

“He wants to be with you,” Cassandra replies and Lavellan actually looks _surprised_. “And anyone who’s seen the two of you together can see that. Whatever he had with the Qun - I do not think he would have sacrificed you to keep it. He did not have to listen to you, Inquisitor. He _chose you_.”

Cassandra rests her own elbows onto her knees, leaning close to Lavellan.

“The situations are different, Lavellan, but here is one thing you must understand, _you are responsible for the things you tame_.”


	26. Chapter 26

Bull looks up when he feels - more than he _hears_ , he doesn’t really hear her coming unless she wants him to - her coming in through the window. He turns just in time to meet her eyes. She pauses, foot braced against the windowsill.

“There’s a door,” Bull says.

“It’s closed,” She replies, staring at him, “The window was open.”

The window is also facing a sheer drop into the mountains, but who is he to question her methods?

“I thought you were spending the night with Pavus,” Bull says. Lavellan pulls herself in, straightening up

“I thought that too.” She says, tilting her head at him,” I thought _you_ were spending the night with the laundress,” She pauses, “The one with the splotch of freckles just underneath her left eye.”

“Really? Is that what you were picking up on?”

Lavellan snorts.

“So, _are_ you going to spend the night with her or not?”

“No,” Bull says, Lavellan looks skeptical. “Not _tonight_.”

“Why?”

“Why aren’t you with Pavus?”

Lavellan rolls her eyes, “Dorian wanted some alone time.”

Bull raises an eyebrow, tipping his chair back a little to give her a look. Or at least, a stronger version of a look.

“He loves my company,” Lavellan says, “But apparently there are just some things he has to do alone every so often.” Lavellan raises an eyebrow, “And as much as I love him there are just some things I’d rather not be present for. There are some experiences my loved ones have that I’d rather not share. Ever.”

Bull laughs as Lavellan crosses her arms.

“He took the sip-sip,” Lavellan says, “And then he told me to shoo. What Dorian doesn’t know is that I had a bottle of Abyssal Peach that I was going to share, but now I’m not. Because he could have given me some warning.”

“You aren’t going to see Sera?”

“Well, since _you_ aren’t spending the night with the laundress it looks like Sera might have a shot after all,” Lavellan replies, “Unless Dagna can pull herself together.”

“Dagna?”

“I don’t blame you for not noticing and I don’t think less of you for not noticing since you and Dagna don’t really see each other,” Lavellan says, unfolding her arms and putting her hands on her hips. “So are you here for the night?”

“Yes,” Bull says. “Why, got exciting plans that I should know about?”

“Yes,” Lavellan deadpans, “Exciting plans that involve me and sweet Fade spirits.”

Bull barks out a laugh as Lavellan immediately starts shucking her clothes, lining up her boots next to the bed before balling up the rest of it and pushing it into a corner between the trunk and the wall.

“Just because it’s out of sight doesn’t mean you don’t have to put it back on later,” Bull says. “Fancy title, fancy clothes.”

“Shhh,” Lavellan says, huddling down into a narrow strip of skin before sliding and burrowing under the covers on the bed, “Let me have this. I didn’t even know what a chemise was until I joined the Inquisition. Let me enjoy my own skin.”

Bull grunts a vague affirmative and turns his back on her.

A few seconds later he hears her shifting underneath the covers, rolling, then stretching, then curling back up again. Rolling some more. Messing with the pillows. Rolling again.

Bull feels his mouth threaten to break into a grin.

“Trouble finding the hot Fade spirits, Boss?” Bull asks.

He hears the muffled thump of her hitting a pillow with her palm.

“You’re reading,” Lavellan says. “Why are you reading?”

Bull doesn’t turn around but Lavellan sighs and says -

“Don’t give me that look.”

“You know I _can_ read,” Bull says, “Sometimes you have me translate for you.”

“Yes, but that’s different. You’re reading right now. Alone. When you could have been doing _things_.”

“People, you mean.”

“Laundresses with freckles.”

“I could’ve. Didn’t feel like it.”

“Alright, yes, but - _you’re reading_.”

“I _do_ read. I didn’t learn all the things I know from fucking people.”

“I know that, but normally you _don’t read_ ,” Lavellan sounds a little frustrated. At him or her, he isn’t quite sure yet. “You _write_. That’s different.”

Bull turns around to look at her. Lavellan’s curled up on her side, half under the covers, head rested on her bent arm, her other hand curled and clutching the dragon tooth to her breast.

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” Lavellan nods, cheek rubbing against her bent arm, “You write. I’m used to you writing. And when you read, normally it’s people. Situations. You look different. I don’t normally see you read books. You look different.” Lavellan’s teeth peak out from between her narrow lips, “You look quite handsome, did you know?”

Bull laughs, closing the book and tossing it onto the desk that neither of them really use. But someone dragged it in here when they figured out that Lavellan wasn’t sleeping in the Inquisitor’s quarters. They probably thought she’d actually do some work on it.

He stands up and crosses the room to get on the bed with her, leaning over her as he ruffles her hair.

“Of course I know I look good. We both knew that from the start.”

Lavellan laughs, rolling onto her back and releasing the tooth to reach up and frame his face between her hands. Her fingers catch on the eyepatch, briefly - he tilts his head to let her fingers catch it again and she pulls him down to untie it.

“Ah, yes, but you hide it so well, sometimes,” Lavellan teases, “Is that so people don’t lose their minds over how irresistible you are? Are you allowing them to function by keeping your good looks on the - how does Varric say it? Down low?”

“I’m a spy, Boss, what can I say?” Bull shrugs, lowering himself over her, tucking his face into her hair as she curls her arms around his neck. Her nails lightly scratch at the base of his horns. He doesn’t really feel it, more like the sensation of pressure. It’s not half bad. She smells a bit like that soap de Fer got her. The one with pomegranate. She must have borrowed de Fer’s bath earlier. “I’ve got to blend in. I’m going for the incognito thing.”

“Well you’re very good at it,” Lavellan says, cheek pressing to the top of his head. “The Iron Bull, one eyed Qunari mercenary.” She clicks her tongue, “I would have never been able to add in the handsome part, you hide it so well.”


	27. Chapter 27

“Half the names on this list are already crossed off,” Leliana says, giving Bull a look. The man shrugs, giving her a _what can you do?_ sort of face.

Leliana doesn’t believe that sort of nonchalance for a single moment.

This isn’t a list of people who’s actions need investigating. This isn’t a list of people who need to be watched.

This isn’t even a list of people who need to be brought to heel.

Leliana recognizes this sort of list.

This. _This is a hit list_.

And half the names on this list are scratched off, erased from the page as they have been in life.

“Coincidence,” Bull says, all teeth.

Leliana scans his face, he isn’t even trying to fool her. He’s not proud, per say. No, it isn’t pride that makes him look so pleased. It’s self satisfaction in a job well done, it’s personal pleasure in removing a pain in your side, it’s the grim and closed-lipped understanding that you have done something that has made your own world a better place.

Leliana folds the list in half, sliding her fingers along the creases as she tucks it between the pages of her log book.

“I’m sure,” Leliana replies, “Do I get a report on such - coincidences?”

“Do you really want one?”

“I’ll let you be the judge of which ones I want a report on,” Leliana replies. “You may be the Inquisitor’s personal spy, but I am the Inquisition’s spy master. It would complicate things if we crossed trails too often, no?”

Bull’s smile threatens to become sharp, but falls short.

“Yes ma’am,” Bull gives her a lazy salute and Leliana allows her own almost-razor smile to show around the edges of her face.

There is a certain kind of burden when you stand next to someone great. There is always that burden; the burden of knowing you are responsible for them. It is the burden of association. Your own actions, should they ever come to light, would drag that person down into the darkness with you.

By that same notion, your actions prevent that person from being swallowed by the darkness created by their own glorious path of victory and brilliance.

The brighter they shine the more you must do to ensure that it never becomes tarnished.

The burden grows and kisses you as it wraps itself around your neck when that person is someone you love. Because then you no longer have anything to hold you back.

There are people you would do anything for. And in comparison, whatever happens to you - whatever awfulness you bring into yourself - doesn’t seem as awful as what could happen to them should you fail to dig your hands into the darkness deep enough.

Leliana wonders when Bull started this list. How he started it. Did it begin as a hit list? Or did it only become one later? Was it provided by the Qun, altered and added onto by him? Did he compile the list himself?

“I find myself looking forward to the new reading material,” Leliana says.

Bull laughs, “I’ll try and make it interesting.”

“I”m sure it will be,” Leliana replies, “You’re a very interesting man, the Iron Bull. Creative. I appreciate that in someone’s craft.”

“I’m sure you could give me tips,” Bull says, and Leliana meets his eyes for a moment.

Bull has spent his life in the darkness for a nameless, faceless organization.

This is his first time sinking his arms into the darkness, the filth, the murky wastes for a person. For himself.

It’s a different beast entirely.

“Perhaps,” Leliana says.

She has spent a very, very long time at this. At this sort of darkness.

Eventually it becomes its own sort of language, a culture all of its own. You learn to recognize it and the potential for it in others.

“What about the other half?” Leliana asks.

“You want to split them?” Bull asks.

“Do _you_ want to split them?”

Bull gives her a look, deep and dark and quiet.

“I’m sure that the spy master of the Inquisition has better things to do,” He replies.

“I trust your discretion,” Leliana replies. He caught ones she wasn’t even looking at. Whatever they did, Leliana is certain they deserved it and she would have approved of it anyway.

Bull is very devoted to his cause.

“Thanks,” Bull says, “Dismissed?”

“Dismissed,” Leliana nods.

As soon as he’s left she takes out the list again, and gestures for Tinker to come forward.

“Double check the names that haven’t been crossed off, cross reference them to our own,” Leliana says, “Let’s see what we can pull from them before he removes them.”

“You trust him?” Tinker asks, making the list disappear in her hands.

“As much as I trust anyone in the Inquisitor’s personal circle,” Leliana says.

Tinker snorts. “Not much, then.”

“Enough to get the job done,” Leliana replies. “Enough to trust them to have a common goal with us.”

“Still not much,” Tinker says, “He knew I was there, Mistress.”

“I would hope so,” Leliana replies, “I would have second thoughts about allowing this if he didn’t. You weren’t being subtle, Tinker.”

“Was I supposed to be?”

“No,” Leliana says, “Is Lavellan aware of any of the people on these lists?”

“He’s too good for that,” Tinker replies, “She’s shown no indication that she does know about any of our actions towards the minor inconveniences.”

“Keep it that way,” Leliana says, “Give the list to Josephine and Cullen, they’ll know to keep it from her. Don’t tell them where the list came from.”

Tinker crosses her arm over her chest and gives a curt bow, “Understood.”

“Dismissed,” Leliana says. When Tinker hesitates Leliana turns to look at her, “Unless there was something else to report.”

Tinker seems to be considering something before she says, slowly, carefully, anticipating Leliana’s reaction -

“One of our birds was intercepted. We suspect Tevinter, but we have reason to believe Orlais.”

“Permit it, for now,” Leliana says, “Use your own judgement. I trust you to handle this. Celene and Brialla would never have allowed themselves to be beholden to the Inquisition. Give them enough to keep coming.”

“And take more while they aren’t looking?”

“Do what you do best, Tinker,” Leliana smiles, “And let’s keep the Inquisitor focused on what she does best.”


	28. Chapter 28

Lavellan opened up her pack and abruptly tipped its contents onto the ground.

Solas raises an eyebrow at the surprising amount of things inside of it.

“Bull worries,” Lavellan says, sweeping most of it to the side, “I swear I actually do have what you’re asking for in here.”

“Of course,” Solas replies, a touch amused as Lavellan picks things out and puts them aside. Small bags of nuts, dried fruit, a roll of bandages, a small flint, some plant cuttings, some coins, a length of string, a couple of free floating buttons, a leather sewing kit, “And out of curiosity, Lavellan, do you know what it is you _do_ have?”

“I”m sure Dorian would love to do inventory for me,” Lavellan replies, “Make a list with categories and reference numbers and such things.”

“Pavus is incredibly organized and meticulous,” Solas concedes, “If not often incredibly wrong in his findings.”

Lavellan snorts, “I am a neutral third party who thinks all three of you are wrong.”

“Then you can hardly be neutral.”

“Just because I _think_ you’re wrong doesn’t mean I’m picking a side,” Lavellan brushes aside a checked square that he knows she fills with acorns and seeds, “It just means I’m clever enough to be gathering information so that I can be the one who comes out on top. Here it is.”

Lavellan produces the small chip of bone and holds it out to him. Solas does not take it, just nods.

“Today,” Solas says, folding his hands in front of him, “We focus on your dreaming.”

“I’m a wonderful dreamer,” Lavellan replies, “Or so I’m often told by Sera or Blackwall whenever I say something appropriately naive like _mages and templars can learn to get along_.”

Lavellan’s eyes glitter at him, “You were thinking it too just now.”

“I’m sure there are many steps in between and that you will have some role in facilitating them,” Solas replies.

“Ever the clever one with words, hahren, have your words ever run out?”

More than you could ever imagine.

“Today,” Solas repeats, raising an eyebrow, “We focus on your dreaming.”

Lavellan copies him, crossing her legs in front of her and folding her hands in her lap.

“You are not a dreamer by nature,” Solas says, “Perhaps it is the Anchor’s doing.”

A disturbing thought; that the Anchor may be changing the nature of her magical affinities, drawing them closer to his own. What else has she seen? What other developments are there that he is unfamiliar with.

“No,” Lavellan shakes her head, “Dreamers are rare among the Dalish. I heard of one that came from Kirkwall a few years ago. But they are few and far in between. My craft is Ghilan’nain Halla Mother’s.”

“It is just as impressive to shape the physical vessel as it is the mental one,” Solas says, though Ghilan’nain was capable of far more than turning into woodland animals.

They all were.

“Regardless of your natural affinity,” Solas continues, “Your progress with manipulating the Fade in dreams is admirable. It takes a certain sort of will to shape the shapeless, just as much I would imagine, as it is to reshape reality.”

“I sense a _but_ coming,” Lavellan says. “As it always does whenever an elder praises the younger.”

Solas gives her a look and Lavellan smiles but pointedly closes her lips over her teeth.

“ _But_ you are going beyond your scope, Lavellan. You’ve been struggling to come back.”

Lavellan looks surprised. Solas offers her what he hopes is a kind smile.

It has been a long time since he has had use of being kind to anyone.

It has been a long time since anyone has ever given him a reason to try.

“It would be poor form of me to teach you and yet leave you to wander, would it not?”

“Ma serannas, hahren,” Lavellan tips her head forward, “For not letting me wander.”

“But I am not with you all the time, da’len,” Solas says, reaching out and touching his fingers to the crown of her head. She lifts her face and he touches her chin with his fingertips, “I can not always reach you. Distance is nothing in the Fade, but I am not always there, always watching. Who am I to know when you sleep, when you walk, when you wander, when you wish to wake?”

Lavellan’s cheeks darken, just a touch.

“Today we focus on you learning how to bring yourself back,” Solas says. “Today we create a focus.”

“Like the one that gave me the Anchor?”

“A focus, da’len, serves many purposes,” Solas replies. He does not say _no_.

“And these are the things that make a focus?” Lavellan asks, looking at what he’s asked her to arrange between them.

“No,” Solas says, “They are what makes a totem for you to remember. Something to hold, something to touch, something physical that will draw you back. What it is is not truly important, physically. It’s what you learn to associate with it. Hold the dragon bone in your hands.”

Lavellan takes it up, holding out, waiting.

“Close your eyes,” Solas instructs, “Breathe, focus on the feeling of it in your hands.”

Lavellan follows his instructions, evening out her breathing and slowing it. Solas tests our her mana - a soft touch to help it smooth over. She slowly relaxes, easing into that free space of thought.

“You are in empty space” Solas says, “There is no sound but my voice and your own, there is no light, no darkness, no up, no down. There is no forward, no backward. There are no smells, no tastes. It is emptiness. It is a void.”

Solas pauses.

“Focus now, focus inwards. Populate the space. Tell me - what do you taste when you scent the air?”

Lavellan’s lips part briefly, her tongue skims her lip quickly.

“Salt,” Lavellan answers, voice low, “I taste salt.”

“Is it warm?”

“No,” Lavellan’s eyes flutter, “It’s cold, damp. It tastes like - it tastes like electricity. It has a tang.”

“Where does the salt come from, follow the scent. Is it on your skin?”

“Yes,” Lavellan says, “It’s on my skin. It’s everywhere. And it’s cool. Refreshing. It’s everywhere, but it comes from, from there.”

“What do you hear?”

“The ocean. The waves, crashing on the shore.” Lavellan tilts her head, tips her face away, “It’s close. But - not close enough, not yet.”

“Don’t go close to it,” Solas says. In Solas’ inner space it’s the drop off of the edge of one of the floating temples and the sound of being so high up in the air. It’s always tempting to just walk over there, but he can’t. You aren’t supposed to. Not unless you want to stay forever. “Stay where you are. Are your feet on solid ground? What does it feel like?”

“Damp,” Lavellan says, wiggling her toes a little, “Grass between my toes. But - “ Lavellan doesn’t uncross her legs but she twitches, “Under it, a little hard. Pebbles? Not sharp. There’s a river bank nearby. It must lead into the sea.”

“Good,” Solas says, “Follow the river inwards. What do you see?”

“Green,” Lavellan says, “The ocean, spread out behind me. I - I don’t think I’ve been here. It doesn’t look right. No, yes. I have. But not exactly. It’s like the Storm Coast, but there’s no storm. It’s overcast, hahren. Overcast but the air is damp, cool.”

Lavellan’s hands flex around the dragon bone.

“There’s a camp up the river, there’s no banner. Is it the Inquisition’s? I see my stag. I see - “

Lavellan breathes out.

“Who do you see?”

“You’ll get upset,” Lavellan’s mouth drifts into a smile.

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“I promise,” Solas says, “Who do you see?”

“I see horns,” Lavellan says, “I’m too far away to see more. Antlers and horns.” She frowns, “Is that right, hahren? Should I be - did I enter his dream?”

“No, this is yours,” Solas says, “You can’t enter dreams awake.”

Not yet.

“Do I go to him?” Lavellan says after a brief moment.

“No,” Solas says, “Not right now. Pull yourself back, now, focus on me. Bring yourself back to here.”

Lavellan’s breathing shifts slightly and she opens her eyes.

“That is your focus,” Solas says, “Remember that place, the scents, the sounds, the tastes. Remember how you got there, learn to associate all of those things with the bone in your hand. I want you to hold it in your hands at least twice a day and focus, truly focus on imprinting that sensation into your mind whenever you hold it. Eventually you will learn to conjure the space without need of the object. But for now this will help.”

“What was that?” Lavellan asks.

“A focus,” Solas replies, “A place to go back to. Not a dream, not waking. But a cross roads of sorts, so you will never be lost. A space of your own.”

Lavellan studies his face and he allows it.

“You truly aren’t upset that he’s there,” She says after a moment. “I thought you disapproved of our relationship.”

“I disapprove of many things, Lavellan,” Solas says, “But I have never said that I disapproved of you finding comfort and understanding in another.”

Lavellan looks surprised.

He allows himself one more kindness.

“Why do you think I told you to pick the dragon bone?”

Surprise lights on her face.

He wonders if the Iron Bull has told her of the practice of splitting a dragon’s tooth yet. Soon, Solas thinks, probably soon.

She smiles, her face blooms with it. Solas feels something inside of himself ease.

“Again,” Solas says, “To make sure you have it. This time without me saying anything.”

Lavellan nods, closing her eyes again.

Solas watches her mana stabilize, smoothing and glossing over itself. And when he is certain that she has slipped into the space and started searching out her origin point he allows his face to slip.

Perhaps it is cruel of him to show her this. The home within her heart, the place she wishes to be most.

Lavellan will die.

She ought to savor the time she has with the Iron Bull in the waking world more than what Solas can show her in dreams.

But still. She deserves to be able to take what she can, while she can.

The Wolf will not always be there to bring her back.


	29. Chapter 29

Lavellan's arm snakes across the guard's throat,hand closing his mouth just as a rush of breath threatens to escape his lips. The fingertips of her other hand, sharp, push just against the softest parts of the under side of the guard's jaw. Her nails dig in, gently threatening to pierce skin.

"Scream," She whispers, voice like scales over gravel, "And know that it will be the last thing you ever do, and that it would not have been worth it. A single sound - _give_ me a reason."

The man's breath is fast, faster, quick like the rabbit they always like to call her behind her back. Her heart beats fast, quick like a rabbit but they don't know. There are other things with hearts like fire. There are other things that run fast and strike hard.

They don't know how fast she can run. And how hard she strikes.

"Do you see that man, over there?" Her voice slithers, snakes, swerves. "That's my partner. You are going to stay here. And you are going to watch him while I check this place and get the weapons you took from us. If anyone comes by, lie. Keep them out of this cell. And know that if you sound an alarm, if you do anything - _anything_ at all to him - I will come back. I will find you. I know your face. I know the feeling of your heart against my hand. I know _you_."

She pauses, the danger ever present but she scents the air like the things with heartbeats that steadily tick up, up, _up_.

"I'll be back soon. Cole - if you're here, watch him. Don't show yourself unless you have to."

She wants him to taste the fear. She wants him to be afraid.

Fear is bad, but she is using the fear to _help_. To _protect_. Daggers turned outwards.

I understand.

I touch my fingers to the back of her neck, and I focus on making them real just for her. And then I ghost the memory of my dagger across his throat. His knees give out and Lavellan's teeth flash.

She releases the man abruptly and disappears out the open cell door. He falls, pain blooming in the knees.

Heartbeats slow, I follow her through the hallways with the parts of me that I can allow to follow. The rest of me focuses here, with them.

Old aches, I know, physical things and over that simmering warm like heat off of the ground, pride.

"She is a dragon," I whisper, "A dragonling, young with teeth cut sharp and violent but not yet big enough to swallow the world."

The Iron Bull's mouth curves up to match the curve of her hand against someone's mouth.

"Big enough to swallow one guy alive," The Iron Bull says out of the corner of his mouth under his breath.

"I cannot help you," I tell him. I don't know how to make bodies forget hurt, I don't understand bodies enough. I might make it forget too much.

"It's fine," He says, "She alright?"

"Yes," I tell him, "She's back in her place. Hunting and sliding through the night. Slithering between shadows. She is the First of Clan Lavellan, student of Halla Mother and the Keeper of Secrets, she is the silence between heart beats, the soft nothing between an inhale and an exhale, the moment of non-understanding between the blink of an eye."

I can feel the movement of his blood, rising and warming and I want to laugh because -

"Yes, beautiful like dragons rising in the storm out of the sea, salt spray and lightning from the jaws. She's coming back. She's found your brace."

Lavellan slides into the cell a few moments later.

The guard is silent and quivering against the door, looking for me where I am not.

"Is it bad?" She asks, looking at the Iron Bull.

I open the locks and the Iron Bull grunts, leaning forward and slowly pulling himself to his feet. His horns almost graze the ceiling. A giant in darkness. A shadow darker than all the rest. Lavellan looks up at him and offers him the brace.

He test his weight from foot to foot, "I've had worse. I can manage."

Lavellan kneels at his feet and he braces his hand against the wall as she fastens it. Lovingly, carefully, anxious.

There are other hurts. There's a reason why they were alone and riding away.

She reaches up and he leans down slowly and she checks the back of his head.

"I couldn't find your sword," She says.

Bull shrugs, "Not my favorite one. It’s just a sword, anyway.”

"I'll commission you a new one," She promises, "When we get back."

"Your staff?"

"I don't need it for magic," Lavellan says, "If they're clever they'd have destroyed it, though. Cole's already signaled our agents. They'll be moving in by tomorrow. Whatever that's ours that's still here will be found. But for now let's get out of here. This has gone untreated for too long."

"Yes ma'am," Bull says, "But your bag. It was important to you."

"The things inside of it can be replaced," Lavellan's smile is quick but real.

"I found it," I tell them both, "I'll get it. I will bring it to you. The collection of promises made and not yet delivered."

"Thank you, Cole," She says and Bull wants to reach out and ruffle my hair but I am not here.

I want to smile like they do. But what is the point if no one sees it? Does a smile still matter if it is unseen, unnoticed? I will ask Varric later.

"Your horses are still here," I say because Lavellan left her stag behind to catch up later. She wanted to ride hard and fast. She would not do that to her stag. "I will take you to them. They are irritated. They don't like it here. The people are loud and wrong."

"I always knew Dennet's horses were clever," Lavellan says, face sliding back into dangerous scales and the threat of things that glide over gravel. "You're going to stay  here. And you aren't going to say a single word of this to anyone. Cole, how many people are here?"

"Two dozen," I answer.

"And all two dozen better still be here when Inquisition forces arrive," Lavellan says. "Trust me, Cole will be here. Cole knows them all by the flavor of their heartbeats."

She isn't wrong.

I follow after them, knives guarding their backs even though it isn't necessary.

He leans his weight onto her, careful even though she is more than willing, more than ready.

Yes and yes.


	30. Chapter 30

"I don't think you're thinking this through," Bull says, "I'm also hoping you're _not_ thinking what I _think_ you're thinking because that's a shit idea, Boss. Basic logistics. Not even real logistics. More like shapes."

"You'll fit, we just have to figure out which way to tilt your head without snapping your neck," Lavellan says, as she continues to inspect the narrow pass. "Besides, do you want to go through another three hours of wandering about the desert when there's a simple line that cuts straight to where we need to go?"

"How about we don't follow weird maps we find in old jars?" Dorian says, “Just because they appear interesting?"

"I agree with Tevinter, which is a sign that we should be listened to," Bull says.

"Cole," Lavellan calls into the pass, "Clear?"

"Clear," Cole whispers back into their ears, "And also very lonely, but the stars don't know how to come down here and the sand doesn't know how to go back to the way it was when it was big."

" _Ignoring_ that last part," Lavellan says, " _I'm_ going in."

Lavellan goes off before either Dorian or Bull could attempt to protest further.

There's no stopping Lavellan when she puts her mind to something. There's no stopping Lavellan when she even considers something.

There just isn't any stopping of Lavellan, in general.

"After you," Dorian says waving at Bull to go first.

Bull glares at him. Pavus doesn't even bother to hide his smirk.

Bull grumbles under his breath but follows her in because with their luck she'd manage to find something dangerous in there.

Sand drifts down from above them every few minutes, not really in clumps but like an almost mist.

It's slow - lighting isn't exactly great and Bull has a hard time getting through all the narrow parts. It involves a lot of creative thinking and will power not to reach back and smack Pavus a good one to the mouth because he keeps laughing.

He can hear Lavellan and Cole up ahead, excitedly talking about something.

It takes him a while to get there, but he does eventually.

He looks up, squinting against the harsh light of the noon sun through the narrow strip of sky above them, and the sand that drifts down.

Lavellan has somehow gotten herself up the canyon wall and she and Cole are inspecting a bleached piece of wood that's wedged between the narrow walls.

"Bull," Lavellan says, looking down at him and waving between her thighs. Bull admits, she's got a certain kind of really impressive leg strength if she's able to hold that pose. "How do you think this got here? Cole says water, but _where_ from? The nearest water source that we found was half a day's ride west of here."

"Dunno," Bull says, shielding his face against the sun, "Maybe there was more water here."

"It was actually fertile before the Blight," Dorian says behind him, “Perhaps there was water here at that point."

"Do you think you could find out more?" Lavellan asks.

"I'm sure there's at least one book on it," Dorian replies, "Whether or not it's in your library is a matter of how much coin you'd be willing to ask Josephine to spend to procure it for you. Unless it's there already. It could be. You have a dissertation on the properties of nug _shit_. I don't see why you _wouldn't_ have this."

"We have a what?"

"How about you come down and not yell about nug shit?" Bull suggests, "Maybe talk about it face to face without the yelling part."

Lavellan abruptly curls her legs and drops.

Bull swears he almost has a heart attack, actually does knock his horns damn hard against the cave walls - he thinks he scratches the walls and shaves off parts of the horns - with how fast he rushes to catch her. He hears Pavus swear behind him and Lavellan _woop_ with laughter.

He gets his arms out in time for her to land in them, softer than he would think - _magic_.

Bull glares at her as she beams up at him.

"I wasn't ever in any danger," Lavellan says.

"Some warning, Boss," Bull says, "It'd be great for my health."

"Since when was did anything we do good for your health?" Lavellan looks sincerely puzzled.

"She has a point," Dorian says.

Bull sighs and puts her down. Lavellan continues to grin up at him, face and hair and eyelashes dusted with sand.

He brushes it off her head, taking her face in his hand and doing his best to wipe it off with a square of linen she's been making him carry since she looted it off of a body they found a few days ago. Lavellan holds still, nose wrinkling as he dusts her eyelashes.

"It's just going to get dirty again anyway," Lavellan says as he lets her face go.

"You won't be saying that when it gets in your eyes," Bull replies and Lavellan nods.

"Point taken, thank you," And then she's off again because Cole is saying he's found something that looks like the silhouette of a fox in one of the rock formations.

Dorian sighs behind him and then laughs, "Oh, you're smitten, aren't you? I knew you were gone for her but I didn't realize how bad it was."

"What?" Bull turns around, grunts when his horns knock against the canyon walls, a sharp pain twanging through his temples.

Dorian lightly raps him on the side with his staff, pushing him back against the canyon wall. Bull glares down at him as Dorian squeezes past him.

"You heard me," Dorian says, "And you know it's true. I'm not saying anything that you didn't already know."

Dorian turns and raises an challenging eyebrow.

"I'm not smitten," Bull says, "I don't do _smitten_."

"Well," Pavus says, "All the same you're gone over her the way everyone else is, but worse. Or better. I don't know how to phrase these sort of things, you'd have to ask Varric."

"I'm _not_ smitten," Bull says at Dorian's back, grunting as he squeezes his way through the pass.

"Says the giant Ox-man squeezing himself through a pin hole to follow after the most dangerous to anyone's health and well being woman in the world," Dorian snorts. "Who are you even trying to convince at this point?"


	31. Chapter 31

“Please,” Lavellan says. Unfair and uncalled for. “For me.”

“Well,” Bull says, “If it’s _for you_.”

Lavellan smiles, hooking Bull’s ring finger with her own and squeezing before letting go. She watches after him, expectant, as he goes to the door.

Bull does not like Blackwall. But he also does not _not_ like Blackwall.

There are parts of him that are bubbling black and foul because of Blackwall, parts of him that want to bash Blackwall against a rock, face first, repeatedly until there isn’t anything left. Because Bull is trying very, _very hard_ not to be Vashoth, what he _knows_ Vashoth can be, he doesn’t do that. Because Lavellan really thinks he’s a decent guy, he does his best not to let that show.

And there are parts of him that are impressed.

Not just anyone can fool the entire world - Qun elite, Left Hand of the Divine, entire networks of Jennies, and Divine records - just like that.

And again -

Not just anyone could go and destroy their own con.

For the most part, though, Bull has all of that under control. Mostly.

“Krem,” Bull says pushing the door to one of the Charger’s rooms open, “Gather a team. We’re breaking into jail.”

Krem narrows his eyes, sitting up from where he was reading next to a candle. Grim rolls over, instantly awake and alert, giving Bull a look. Stitches groans and covers his face before rolling over and attempting to shove his head under a pillow. “Breaking _into_ jail? Normally we do the opposite.”

“Boss wants us to break in,” Bull says. Stitches groans again, but sits up and starts pulling on his boots.

Krem studies him. Grim watches them both, handing Stitches his jacket from where Stitches had thrown it onto the floor without looking.

“On the record or off?”

“What record?” Bull gives Krem a look.

Krem sighs and gets up even as Grim is already throwing their bags together. Stitches moves past Bull, presumably to wake up some of the others.

“Pack light,” Bull says raising his voice so Stitches can catch it, “Get a small force for this one. “You’re going in with some of the Nightengale’s people.”

“You coming?” Krem asks.

“Not all the way, I attract too much attention. I’m too recognizable. But I’ll be there.”

Krem raises an eyebrow, pausing in the middle of checking his potions, “By personal request, or _professional_ one?”

There’s a reason why Krem’s his lieutenant and it’s not just because Krem is pretty good at hitting things. (Though Krem couldn’t fucking shut up to save his life.)

“Does it matter? Both,” Bull says through his teeth, “We move out in two.”

“You have a team in mind?”

“Same one you’re thinking of, probably. Tell Skinner no blood.”

“Sir, yessir, Chief.”

Lavellan wants Blackwall, she’ll get Blackwall. She wants him alive, she’ll get him alive.

Lavellan wants to steal him in secret, Bull is more than ready to die to keep that secret buried.

Blackwall was obviously not there when Lavellan found out. He was also, obviously, not there when Lavellan came back from talking to him in the cell.

He was not there on the ride to Val Royeaux. He was not there when Lavellan’s eyes first landed on the platform of the gallows.

He was not there, at Lavellan’s side, when their eyes met and Lavellan’s skin frosted over and her breath misted in front of her face - unnoticeable to most people because of the rain.

Blackwall was not there, but Bull was.

Bull was also there, leaning against the door to the war room, as Lavellan, Josephine, Cullen, and Leliana argued about Blackwall’s sentence. He was not there when Lavellan’s voice cracked on the word _enough_ , and the heavy silence that followed.

Blackwall was not there to hear Lavellan’s voice crack stone with ice when she proclaimed - “Blackwall lives. Blackwall dies. _But it is by my will and no one else’s_. I do not permit him to die in this way. Bring him here so I can choose.”

Lavellan opened the door a few minutes later and she looked directly at him, a sharp and wild thing in her eyes barely held back. Bull doesn’t understand what Lavellan wants from Blackwall, what Blackwall did to make her eyes crack into that kind of beast. But he’ll support her decision.

Personally, Bull sees no advantage gained by bringing Blackwall back. He’s a good fighter, true, and an amazing liar. But other than that, he brings no connections to the table.

But Lavellan gets what she wants, even if Bull has to blow up half of Orlais to do it.

(“I want _you_ to do it,” Lavellan tells him, sitting on their bed, eyes clear like the ocean or the sky or the Breach, “You’re in charge of this. Work with Leliana. I don’t want to know how it’s done. Don’t ever tell me. But I want it _done_. Tonight. We can’t wait any longer. _I_ can’t wait any longer.”

Bull didn’t answer right away. He didn’t really look at her, looked to the side of her. Because all of this for one person. All of this for one liar.

Too many things were hitting together in his head and his chest and his gut. It wasn’t pleasant.

Bull had known - he’s known for a long time about what she’s capable of. It’s another thing to see it in action. To see her pushing things into action.

And he’s always known she was the possessive sort. She would never let the things that come into her possession be taken so easily. Not without her permitting it.

“Please,” She said and Bull looked at her face and he said yes, because of course he said yes.)

And if Bull is being honest -

Blackwall said something to her in that cell. Something that made her leave with angry lightning in her eyes and a pale mouth and bones vibrating with thunder. Something he said to her made her spit and seethe.

Something he said, something he did, tore a jagged strip in her.

And Bull is going to find out what the fuck it was so he can fucking fix it.

(Bull knows all about possession. _It can go both ways_.)


	32. Chapter 32

“In this life, there are things that I cannot lose,” Lavellan says, “Do you understand, Cole?”

“Yes. Mother’s hands, Father’s smile. The way that people look at me, the way my people look at me like I am not one of them but something _other_. Not here or there, quick or slow, rabbit or wolf, but silent and forbidden. The feeling of wind so fast it rips through your hair and stings your face when your beads fly back against your skin, it stings your eyes and it’s so cold to close them. The heart beat underneath your soles, you’ve lost them already. I’m sorry. I don’t know what that’ s like - not the same way you do.”

She reaches out and touches my cheek with her fingertips, the way that the person she keeps in her heart does. Not like the way the person she keeps on her lips.

“I’m sorry, too,” She says and she is. She means it.

She, too, knows what it’s like to be forced to stay with one face, one body, one image -

It’s so hard, to stay in one shape. To stay as one person. Cole doesn’t understand it.

He doesn’t understand how people can have so many emotions but just the one face. They change inside so many times, but the outside stays the same. And how do they always stay the one way on the inside? What happens when they get tired of being one thing? They can’t change it.

And how would they know about anything? Cole knows about how it feels to be an owl because he’s been an owl. He knows what it’s like to be a candle about to be put out by wind, but kept sheltered by a stone wall or a hand because he’s been the flame at the end of a candle.

But people know these things just by thinking about it, and Cole doesn’t really understand.

Lavellan understands. Lavellan has been the bear. She has been the halla - the hart, the raven, the girl, the Inquisitor, the wolf, the woman, the nameless creature above all others.

“You lost them all,” I say. “You let them go.”

“Yes,” Lavellan says, “Because when you are drowning, you must cut it all loose, or die with it.”

“Because they would have made you join them at the bottom, if you didn’t. In the dark and dank, alone and forgotten, wasted and wasting. Gone.”

“Yes,” Lavellan’s hand falls - a beacon in the dark, calling everyone to fight their way out of the water that tastes like rot and wine and kisses abandoned and lies and wicked things done in shadows and deceptions and endless tangles and crumbling ages and lost time. Her hand takes mine and I can feel it. A call that isn’t home because I don’t know a home because I am everything, everyone, at all times.

“But there are things you still have,” I remind her. “Kisses that are not kisses. A friend in every place. The  embrace of the sky. The heart in his chest.”

“Yes,” She says, smiling. Bitter and stinging, no sweetness in sight. “But there are things that I must never lose.”

“War,” I say, even though I know the answer is wrong.

Lavellan rests her head on my shoulder, and her hair is soft against my cheek - it smells like earth and solid things that soak in the sky.

Her hand curls around the bone over her breast.

“Him,” I say, even though I know that answer is wrong, too.

“This,” She says, lightly hitting her hand against her chest, “And this, and this, and this.”

“There is a face in the world that should be yours,” I whisper, and I speak in the language forgotten by many, remembered in the soft singing secrets of a very few. “But he is dead, gone.”

“How can he be gone when he haunts me?” Lavellan whispers back in the language of souls and spirits and songs, “How can he be gone when he is in my eyes, my mouth, the veins on my hands, the folds of my knees? Another life, we meet again, another life I lose him. How cruel it is for our Gods to do this. Falon’din and Dirthamen were one soul, but they were immortal. Even in death they are not apart.”

The colors of my spine remember something that I cannot say, cannot put into words.

“The cycle begins again,” I say, “You are still here.”

“I lost him,” She says, “But it was not a loss I could afford. It is not a loss I can ever come back from.”

“ _But you are here_.”

“Parts of me, Cole,” Her brows are tight and sharp and crumpling, her heart is crushing, and her back is bowing, “I am not here. I am not whole. I am missing. And it has made me cruel, I think. Tell me - am I cruel?”

“Yes,” I say, “When you say those things, yes. When the Iron Bull sees you with those words behind your teeth, yes. He loves you, more than you can ever understand.”

More than she can understand because she is a jagged thing and understanding is a whole but she is now parts.

“I love him with everything I have left to lose,” She says, “Cole, have I lost him? _Did I lose him_?”

“Do you want to lose him?” I ask. “He is the same person. The one you saw, the one you wanted, the one who reached into the center of you and touched you there. He is still the person who’s shadow you trust. What changed?”

“I did,” Lavellan gasps as her shoulders break, “He died. And I lived. And I was cruel, and I’ll be worse. There’s so much more left of me to lose, Cole. I don’t know what’s going to be left after this is over.”

“He would still love you.”

“Isn’t that why I’m cruel?”

I touch the salt of her earth, it slides over the image of my finger.

“Will you stop me before I go to far?”

“He would stop you.”

“I don’t want to make him stop me. I don’t want him to see me when it gets that bad. I’m a woman, too, Cole, you know. We’re very vain like that. We always want the people we like to see us in the best light.”

“That’s not true,” I say. “You want to see him in every light, always.”

She laughs, rough like water over rocks, “Was I always so selfish, I wonder, so greedy?”

“You’re human,” I say, “You are not the thing above. Yes. And he’s always known. Yes.”


	33. Chapter 33

“Ah, how selfish of you,” Vivienne hears Lavellan say. “Did you think you could go ahead of me? Aren’t you always on about manners and how ladies ought to go first?”

Vivienne’s forte has never exactly been defending large swaths of people - it has normally been pin point precision and calculated effects for the greatest amount of damage with the least amount of moves. As such, this shield was only meant to hold up against so many attacks for so long, and the main focus of the shield’s strength has always been at the center where she is.

Vivienne did not practice her magic to defend an area with equal amounts of focus on every side of the shield against multiple types of attack for long periods of time.

Generally, Vivienne’s enemy would be dead by now.

Unfortunately, that is not the case here. The dragon is still alive, mostly well, and breathing a truly aggravating amount of ice.

Ice is one of the more annoying elements to deal with using a mana shield. Other hazards - projectiles, flames, lightning - all one has to do is make the mana hard enough to deflect. For ice you have to make the shield _hot_ , or it becomes an impediment to visibility. You become blind and trapped.

Vivienne digs her heels into the ground and renews her focus on making sure the edges of the shield hold. She can sacrifice the entire back of the shield. The dragon is in the front and there shouldn’t be anymore of its children around. That they know of.

She can see Cassandra throw herself down as the dragon turns its attention onto her, now perfectly annoyed enough by Cassandra’s dubiously effective hacking at its ankle to do something about it.

Vivienne’s arms ache and she can feel her core threatening to collapse, the emptiness without mana, cold and nauseating. Her hands, miraculously and thankfully, don’t shake when she pulls out her second to last vial of lyrium and unstops it, throwing its contents back fast.

It helps when you can’t taste it.

It would be too sweet to stop, otherwise.

Thankfully, she’s going to burn it out of her system before her body and core can register it.

Vivienne turns around, and looks at them, pulling out one of the few healing potions they have left to give to the Iron Bull.

Lavellan’s holding Bull’s torso up against her own, blood tricking from a cut above her eye over her face. At least two of fingers on the hand with the Anchor are broken. She holds the other arm awkwardly, and her leg is positioned stiffly next to her.

Lavellan looks at the Iron Bull’s face in the sort of way Vivienne is only used to looking at certain things behind closed, locked, and spelled doors with the protection of a certain level of fear and wealth behind her.

“I know you’re upset with me,” Lavellan says, “But you cannot leave me just yet. Wake up.”

The Iron Bull is unresponsive. Lavellan’s face is dirt and blood stained and that much shaper for all of it. Vivienne pushes out a sigh through her teeth and forces her body to keep moving.

Between the fact that neither Vivienne nor Lavellan are particularly expert healers - minor wounds and field treatments are one thing, this is quite another -, that they are both low on mana with their cores threatening to go out at any second, and that they are up against a high dragon, Vivienne feels perfectly vindicated in forcing gravity down upon her fist and punching the Qunari as hard as she can.

“We do not have time for such idleness,” Vivienne says as Lavellan gasps and the man gains consciousness. Vivienne helps Lavellan support the man’s head as she pushes the bottle to his mouth. “Drink. The Right Hand of the Divine is skilled and bred for killing dragons, but I doubt that she’s capable of doing it alone and while defending three other people.”

“Right,” Bull grunts, heaving himself up.

Lavellan watches him move and Vivienne moves and pulls Lavellan to her feet. Lavellan leans heavily on her staff.

“I’ll stay here,” Vivienne says, “Go.”

The man looks at her. Vivienne gestures.

“ _Go, now_.”

There is no time for doubt.

Vivienne is not a warm person. But her loyalties are secured, and in this fight where they can lose not only their lives but the fate of the rest of the world, there is no time for questions.

“Thank you,” Lavellan says as Bull moves to assist Cassandra, “He makes me weak.”

“He does,” Vivienne agrees, both of them throwing their hands up - Lavellan’s hand just a moment slower than Vivienne’s, to generate shields for their companions, “But it is not necessarily a bad thing.”

“Isn’t it?” Lavellan says, “Or did I not just lose my head for a few minutes in the middle of fighting a High Dragon just now?”

“In this particular situation, yes, it is a bad thing,” Vivienne says, helping Lavellan fumble to pull out a lyrium vial from her pocket, “But overall, no.”

Lavellan snorts, throwing back the lyrium and throwing the bottle aside.

“We both know that I know what it is like to be weak,” Vivienne says, soft under the sound of cracking ice.

Lavellan’s eyes flicker to her.

“But I doubt it has ever almost cost you your life in such a way,” Lavellan says.

“No,” Vivienne says, “Other ways, but not this sort of brutal mess, no.”

Cassandra and Bull are dividing the dragon’s attention, leaving its back open for Vivienne and Lavellan to start weaving arrows of fire.

Fire is one of the easier and least costly elements to create, most fortunately for them in this situation.

“Love is a dangerous thing,” Vivienne says to Lavellan underneath the crack of the fire in their hands, “And it is a most wonderful thing, to have, my dear. But it is costly, and it is demanding. It will drain you dry.”

“There is no potion for that,” Lavellan says, lip curling up as she pulls the hand with the Anchor back to throw the first arrow.

“No,” Vivienne agrees, “It wouldn’t be the same if there was.”


	34. Chapter 34

“You came,” Lavellan says. She sounds surprised.

“Was I not supposed to?” Bull replies, taking a quick look around before bending over her to examine the chains. “They took you seriously, for once.”

Lavellan continues to look up at him with something that combines joy and fear in ways that make Cassandra uncomfortable to look at. It isn’t her place to see.

“Hurry,” She says by the door, “We didn’t time the sweep nearly well enough. How much medical attention does she need?”

“He said you were coming,” Lavellan says, coughing and turning her head to the side to spit, “But I didn’t believe him.”

“Who?” Bull and Cassandra ask and Lavellan just looks at Bull’s face with growing light.

“Solas,” Lavellan says, eyes fixed on Bull’s, “And then Cole, but I didn’t believe either of them. The one is too good at lying and the other will say anything to make you feel better.”

“Well,” Bull says, “They didn’t lie this time. I came. We all came for you. As soon as we heard.”

“You did,” Lavellan says, “ _You did_. But you were upset with me. You came.”

“Fuck - “ Bull says, arms around her as he undoes the locks behind her back. “Boss, _Lavellan_. You didn’t think I would? Fuck.”

Bull drops his head over hers, knocking their foreheads together, his eyes closing even as hers remain painfully open.

“Lavellan,” Bull says, voice low, “When we get back, after you get better - or maybe before because I’m shit at waiting - we’re going to have a long talk. Just you and me.”

“ _Later_ ,” Cassandra says, “I hear them coming.”

Bull and Lavellan keep their heads framed together for a few more moments, but Bull’s hands start working again and the chains clink open.

Bull grunts as he pulls her up, and Lavellan weakly puts her arms around Bull’s neck, face curling close to his skin.

Casandra pulls her shield up and gets her sword ready.

“Stay behind me,” Cassandra says.

It would have been better if more of them were here. But Cassandra was the only one capable of keeping up with Bull, and they needed Cole running messages. Everyone else is a day or two behind them, at the most.

With their luck, and the devotion of Lavellan’s stags - for once willing to carry others who aren’t her - maybe only hours.

It doesn’t change the fact that they’re two people - and one injured, unwell, unarmed, weakened Inquisitor - up against an entire hold of hostile Templars and Tevinter mages.

But Cassandra has had worse odds. She’s lived.

In general - they have worse odds stacked against them.

Lavellan will live.

“Cassandra,” Lavellan’s voice is whispery soft, like paper, and close. Cassandra inclines her head and Lavellan’s fingertip just grazes over the shell of her ear.

Cassandra feels a wave of magic slide over her, a feeling of touching glass with every single pore of her skin. It settles over her just as the first red Templars come into view. Cassandra rolls her shoulders, bares her teeth and stands her ground.

“Hold on,” Bull says behind her and then a sigh -

As Cassandra braces against the first hit, raising her shield and getting ready to strike, she feels the air glitter with lightning - her hair stands on end and her skin sings with awareness - and the sound of it clatters through her ears.

“I have enough,” Lavellan says, “Enough for this.”

Bull sighs and Cassandra pushes.

It’s slow work, but Cassandra gets them to a window, and from there it’s easy.

You don’t have to do anything to fall. The trouble is landing.

Cassandra admits she isn’t always so very good at those.

Cassandra nods at them, edging them back towards the window. Bull sighs.

“It’s always the tight corners,” Bull grumbles, squeezing himself through the opening, Lavellan held tight to his chest with one arm.

Lavellan’s eyes meet Cassandra’s as Bull tips them out.

Cassandra nods at her, even as she hears Lavellan’s laughter being ripped out of her through the fall.

She doesn’t spare a moment to check and make sure they’ve landed well, the backs of her legs hit the ledge - Cassandra pushes down instinct and fear and logic, curling it tight into an iron ball in her belly, and throws herself back.

Cassandra doesn’t have time to consider how it feels to fall without knowing where she’s going to land because the air is knocked out of her when she _does_ land.

She rolls out of the hay seconds later, weapons raised as she looks back up at the tower for anyone following.

“Relax, Seeker,” Varric says and Cassandra almost kicks him because she wasn’t expecting him to be standing so close. “We’ve got the place locked down.”

Cassandra takes a glance around, sword still held up, and takes in the Inquisition soldiers and Chargers around.

Bull’s cradling Lavellan in his arms, but kneeling and allowing Solas and Dorian to fret over her. Cassandra almost snorts at the image of the two fretting, but it’s well deserved.

She leans into their touch, pushing her face into Dorian’s hand as he bows his head close to hers. Cassandra can’t hear what they’re saying from her. But she’s certain it’s appropriately _them_.

Solas holds her hand in his. Cassandra doesn’t think she’s ever seen Solas look so open - so unabashedly _emotional_.

She looks away because his face is too familiar for her liking.

A hand grasps her shoulder, Cassandra looks -

“You did make it,” Cassandra says.

“Yes,” Cullen says, “Leliana wanted to come as well, but cooler minds had to prevail.”

Someone has to run the Inquisition while the Inquisitor is away. And with Josephine momentarily away taking care of finalizing alliances with nobles of Orlais, someone must watch Skyhold.

Leliana has always managed better where she couldn’t be seen, although there is a reason why she has managed to get this far with such a visible reputation.

“Thank you,” Cassandra says. Cullen dips his head once and they both turn back to where Lavellan is.

They were careless. Or perhaps they were too arrogant.

Or perhaps they had forgotten that Lavellan is simply herself - mortal and vulnerable, for all the things she has achieved.

“One mistake is all it takes,” Cullen says.

“And we are fortunate that it was one we could correct,” Cassandra sheathes her sword. “I trust that Leliana already has the perpetrator by the throat?”

“If not now, by the time we get back, yes,” Cullen replies. “I imagine a botched attempt - no matter how far along it got - is not something that can be recovered from.”

“If their leader doesn’t get rid of them first,” Cassandra replies, “There’s a long line of people who’d like to get to them next.”

Lavellan closes her eyes and she looks so very, very _joyous_ to be in the Iron Bull’s arms, with Solas holding her hand and Dorian fretting about her face.

It almost distracts from how everyone present is armed to the teeth and ready for blood.


	35. Chapter 35

“Do you object to him?”

Dorian glances up from the letter he’s been attempting to write under Lavellan’s attempts at guidance for the past two hours. The woman has barred him from drinking for two days to make sure he’s sober for this.

Given that Lavellan, herself, doesn’t write letters and that Tevinter culture and such nuances aren’t exactly her forte, this letter isn’t going very well.

But Dorian’s actually gotten his name down on it, so it’s definitely better than if he were just writing it by himself.

“To whom exactly, Lavellan? I object to a lot of things, and a lot of them are male,” Dorian says.

Lavellan is leaning over the railway, looking at the fresco taking shape below. Lavellan idly tosses one of the scrapped versions of the letter between her hands, crumpled up into a very small ball.

“If you mean Solas, then no,” Dorian says, “But then I’d have to ask about what are you asking I object about him? Do I object to him as a person? Not at all. As your mentor and - shall we say close family? Maker, no, of course not. Do I object to a lot of his theories and hypothesis? Certainly. Do I object to his general approach and outlook? Definitely. Do I object to his physical appearance? Vocally, as a matter of _course_.”

“Not Solas,” Lavellan says, squeezing the paper ball tighter in one hand before tossing it to the other, “But I’m glad to know your opinion on him. And I think he heard the last part.”

“Good,” Dorian says, scribbling an angry face at the edge of the letter - which is definitely going into the scrap pile, and it’s been heading there ever since line _two_ \- , “I hope he did. I raised my voice on purpose. Also, sound carries. I’d be worried if he didn’t. Maybe his age is finally getting to him.”

Lavellan snorts, “Don’t worry, hahren, I don’t think you’re that old, yet. You’re quite spry for a man of your age, I think. I’m sure we’ll all be lucky to be as fit as you are when we get that old.”

Lavellan turns and flashes a smile at Dorian over her shoulder, “He’s rolling his eyes at you.”

“Will he kindly roll his wardrobe into a fire while he’s at it?”

Lavellan snorts, eyes glittering, the light banking a little when she tilts her head at him.

“He isn’t who I was asking about.”

“Ah,” Dorian carefully puts his quill down and puts the stopper back on the ink well. There is only one other _he_ that Lavellan can be referring to. “It all circles back to the Iron Bull, doesn’t it?”

“It’s very tidy like that, yes,” Lavellan turns, leaning back against the railing - she shouldn’t. Dorian doesn’t trust the architecture of this place. Cullen doesn’t have a roof, there’s a strange vault in the basement, and for whatever reason there’s a balcony _inside_ of the Inquisitor’s quarters. She watches him, rolling the ball of paper between her fingers, “What do you think of him? Do you approve?”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking, but overall the answer is yes,” Dorian says, “Despite what you may think.”

“And what do I think, Dorian?”

“Ah, you’re even beginning to sound like him, how charming. Don’t take that too far, I might end up wanting to kill you both with my evil blood magic,” Dorian wiggles his fingers at her. Lavellan raises an eyebrow. “In all honesty, Lavellan, I don’t think my opinion on him matters to you at all. I don’t think anyone’s opinion or approval - when it comes to him - matters.”

“To be fair,” Lavellan says, “The same could be said about my opinion of you.”

Dorian refuses to be touched right now. Later, perhaps, when Lavellan isn’t asking him to analyze the man she would quite happily spend the rest of her remaining life with - the man who, if she had met sooner and perhaps in a different situation, eagerly run off to explore and fight the world with.

Dorian is simply the man who she would have chosen in a different life.

But they are in this life - and she, for whatever reason, has still chosen him, but perhaps not in the same way they could have chosen each other, in that hypothetical other world.

(What a beautiful world that one must be, Dorian hates it on principle.)

“I think,” Dorian says, crossing ankle over his knee and folding his hands together, “That he’s very important to you, and that he sees you very clearly. And you see him very clearly, and you’re very important to him, in turn. And I think a lot of the reasons why you two are important to each other is because you see each other.”

“Am I that shallow - that I choose people for what they see?”

“Yes,” Dorian replies, “When you’re an important person - such as _the Inquisitor of Thedas,_ and to some, Herald of Andraste - one of the most important and easily exploited things is being seen as you are. I don’t think I need to tell you how I know this. I, too, am shallow, and I’m not afraid to admit that.”

Lavellan pushes off the railing and walks to him, holding out her hand. He takes it, brings her hand to his forehead, her knuckles against his brow.

“I do love you,” She says, voice low and soft as she drops the paper ball onto the desk and cards her hand through his hair. “I love you and how brave you are and how cleverly you survived it all.”

“Thank you,” Dorian says, “But for once let’s make this about you instead of me, hm?”

Lavellan laughs, quiet.

“You love him and he loves you, that much is clear,” Dorian says, “And I can’t protest that. I won’t even disapprove of it.”

“But?”

“But it’s very dangerous, Lavellan, being _seen_ ,” Dorian looks up at her, hand still held in his. “You start to want things from each other, expect things. Honesty is hard, Lavellan. And tiring. I always want to be the best in your eyes, and I imagine you want to be the best in his. That’s hard to do when you aren’t perfect. And as wonderful and delightful as you are, you have to admit to certain flaws.”

Lavellan’s smile is such a pretty thing. Sad.

“You _do_ disapprove.”

“Of parts of your relationship,” Dorian says, “Didn’t you know I like to be contrary?”

Lavellan’s thumb glides over his ear as she runs her hand over his head again.

“Tell me,” She whispers.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do to each other? You two already think so similarly, fight in certain patterns,” Dorian says, “You’ve built each other into these things in each other’s lives, these pillars of support. What’s going to happen, Lavellan, when one of you disappears?”

The cracks around her eyes glimmer, and Dorian reaches up with his free hand and glides his thumb over her cheek.

“He’s older than you,” Dorian says, “By quite a lot. And you’re - well. You have a rather large target painted on you. Who’s going to be left to pick up the pieces? Dependency isn’t a beautiful thing like it is in the books that I know you haven’t read. But being needed is addicting.”

“He isn’t dependent on me.”

“Oh? Then you don’t really understand what he means when he looks at you and says your name, then,” Dorian says, gently running his knuckle along her jawbone. “Lavellan, you are all that stands between him and the monster he thinks the Qun says he is. Sure, he has the Chargers. A moral sense of decency. But _you_ broke him from the Qun. _You_ are what keeps those morals aimed at a certain goal. That man is gone over you. Maybe someday he’ll figure out how to keep you and him separate, but for now he leans on you. A lot.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Let’s say it isn’t. What about you?”

“What about me, Dorian?”

Dorian holds her chin in his hand and squeezes her hand in his.

She closes her eyes.

“I’m a very selfish woman,” She says. “With very little time left - according to the rest of the world.”

Dorian’s throat threatens to close up. It doesn’t.

“I don’t disapprove of the way you look at him and the way you’re with him,” Dorian says, “I just wish you could do it without thinking about like you’re thinking about how much you can cheat and steal and get away with.”

“I wish that, too,” Lavellan says, “And I wish that too, for when you look at me.”

“I do the same,” Dorian says, “Why do you think I drink so much?”

Lavellan swallows, breath warm and wet.

“Forget the letter,” She pulls away from the hand on her face at the same time she pulls at him with the hand he’s holding, “Let’s have that drink.”

“ _That’s_ the kind of dependency I can get behind.”


	36. Chapter 36

“Did you know,” Lavellan says and Solas closes his eyes as she curls over herself, “I always knew you’d leave me?”

Solas breathes in, and she smells like everything spring. Rot, decay, cold wetness, potential, sacrifice. The flower must wither for there to be fruit. The flower was always just a mere part of the process.

“Ask me how,” Lavellan breathes. Solas traces the fine cracks along her mana channels, the cracks that have almost splintered her core. He’s honestly amazed that she’s still alive.

Anyone else would have died from less. Solas is fairly certain that even he would be unable to endure such suffering, such decay.

The cracks are so deep, so unrepairable that they’re visible to the naked eye. Anyone can see how broken she has become.

Familiar green shines through her skin, growing and pushing its way through - blackening the areas it doesn’t shine through, crystallizing and shattering her at the same time.

Atrophy and fossilization all at once.

Solas draws in the scent of it, swallows this new memory of her down, down, down. Let this, too, become part of him and his grief. What could it hurt to add one more name? One more face?

“How?” He asks as he stands before her. Lavellan curls over the Anchor, unable to move the rest of her body except to slowly curl inward. A dying thing.

( _His_ dying thing.)

“I looked at you,” Lavellan rasps, “And I know the look about you. You think I didn’t. I did. Did you think you taught me how to lie? No. I looked at you, and I knew you. The wanderer, the hermit locked away in his study. A mysterious stranger with some sort of burden about him that he can’t share with anyone else. Won’t share with anyone else. The lone - heh - _wolf_.”

Lavellan turns her head to the side and spits. It’s more black ichor, sticky and thick, than actual blood.

“I knew you would leave me,” Lavellan’s breathes are loud, wheezing, painful and wet, “I knew because you weren’t the type to stay. Tell me, wolf, did you even stay to watch over your newly freed brethren? Or did you turn your face away and leave as soon as the deed had been done, to lick your wounds and shutter your eyes to anyone’s struggles but your own?”

She was not there, Solas reminds himself. She did not know. She does not know.

“Such a spoiled thing you are,” Lavellan says and Solas opens his eyes to look down at her. Her head is lifted as high as she can, and she can just barely meet his eyes, doubled over like that. “You watch, and you wait. But only when it pleases you. When it doesn’t, you turn away, close your eyes, shut your ears. Like a child. And then you wait for the hard ugliness to be over so you can watch as you please again. You can’t look at me, can you? You can’t look at what you made me become.”

“No,” Solas says.

“Coward,” Lavellan’s voice is almost warm. The death rattle makes it temperate.

“No,” Solas says.

Lavellan laughs. Or perhaps, laugh is too polite a word.

“Look at me,” Lavellan snarls, hand lurching forward and falling short of him. She falls onto her front, awkwardly curled with her knees still bent, arm slowly bending as she curls on the dirt.

Solas steps back from her.

“ _Look at me_ ,” She sobs.

Solas looks at her.

Lavellan struggles to tip herself onto her side, Anchor held close to her torso as black smears itself over his lips, her nose, her ears.

Lavellan’s eyes are watery and bleeding and she stretches the fingers of her other hand out, just barely managing to touch the tip of his boot.

“You raised me,” She says, Solas starts to shake his head, “No. You can’t deny me. _You_ raised me. I was born Lavellan. I was born something else. But it was your focus. It was your doing - giving it to Corypheus. And then it was you who saved my life, time and time again with your so called _dreamt_ knowledge of the Fade. It was you who said I was the only one who could seal rifts - because it was your magic that made the Veil, your magic that ripped the Veil, and so it could only be the magic planted inside of me that could sew it closed once more. It was you who made me Inquisitor. It was you who brought me to that place where the Veil was first made and put me on that throne. It was you this entire time.”

Lavellan closes her eyes and laughs, black spittle flying from her mouth.

“I talked all that shit about choosing my own path. About how whatever I became would be because of my own choices. About how I would always be _myself_ and never someone else’s thing. All that shit I said about how I’d _choose_.” She opens her eyes again, slowly, looking at him, “But it was you. I was never free. I was never in control. I was never, truly, making any choices.”

“No,” Solas says, hating how his voice breaks. He knew it would come to this. He had known. He had told his heart to brace for this very moment. He knew she would die. He knew it would kill her. He knew she would find him.

He knew their paths would cross once more.

But - powers above all - _he knew she would make it hard_. Solas knew -

“No,” Solas knees, taking her hand in his and kissing the back of it. It’s already cold. “No, Lavellan. You were always free. Your choices were your own. And you shaped the Inquisition into your image. Everything you did - every ally you made, every victory and defeat, every triumph and discovery. It was yours. The Inquisition succeeded because of you.”

“Your Inquisition.”

“ _Your_ Inquisition,” Solas promises.

“Because of your Anchor,” Lavellan says.

And then she laughs because he does not correct her.

“I suppose I was blessed by a god,” She says. Solas does not answer her. “Herald of the Wolf.”

Solas shakes his head. “I am not a god.”

“If you aren’t a god,” Lavellan’s voice is small as he brushes her hair back from her face, the strands that had fallen over her nose and mouth drawing thin lines of black blood across her darkening and splitting skin, “Where will I go? What’s on the other side? Hahren - what will happen to me?”

“I do not know,” Solas says as softly as he can.

Lavellan closes her eyes, “Where did any of them go? Was there no promised place? Nowhere beyond the doors of death? No guiding hand to take me there, no comfort, no rest? Am I just nothing?”

“A memory, perhaps,” Solas says, “But never nothing.”

Lavellan opens her eyes, begging him, silently. Solas obliges.

“Was any of it ever mine? Just _mine_?” She asks as he slowly rolls her onto her back, squeezing her hand in his. Her fingers faintly twitch, but the atrophy has already begun to settle in. If he doesn’t act soon, she will be frozen this way.

“Yes,” Solas whispers, looking into her eyes while he still can. “He was yours. He was always yours.”

Lavellan’s breath jerks her body as she rasps out a sob, eyes welling up with a mixture of red-black and clear water.

He shushes her as she cries, touching the edges of her face with his fingertips.

“Before you collect,” Lavellan says and Solas freezes even as his hand curls around the wrist of the Anchor, “Promise me something.”

“I cannot make you any promises, Lavellan.”

“ _Promise me something_ ,” Lavellan repeats, drawing the arm with the Anchor as close to her body as she can. Not very. She’s lost movement in the limb already. “Promise me - . Whatever happens, whatever comes to pass, should I live or die, promise me one thing. One single boon - for having carried your mark and incubated it within myself and playing out your plans this far. I ask this of you as your da’len. This you cannot refuse.”

“No,” Solas admits.

He owes her many things.

He can lie to her at least once.

Lavellan looks into his eyes, “When I die, when I am gone from this world - do not let him follow. Let it be of old age, of some unavoidable injury, some sickness he couldn’t escape. But do not let him die for me.”

Solas closes his eyes and she grabs his hand with surprising speed and strength. He feels the magic within the Anchor surge - bright against his eyelids - in response. He feels more than he hears the thumping heartbeat of it push out across his skin, a perfect circle of tangible, tastable, sinuous magic that spreads out across the glade. The sound of her pain, a whimper and a keen torn from her crumpling lungs, is barely audible as a separate noise.

“ _Please_ ,” Lavellan whispers. “I give you the Anchor freely. My life. My purpose. _But I cannot let him go_.”

“I promise,” Solas says.

Lavellan shakes her head, “Swear it, now. I want your word.”

Solas adjusts his grip on her hand so that their palms touch.

“I swear,” Solas says, “Upon my heart, my core, my life. Once, _once_ , I will keep him from wrongful death.”

“Even if it is death he seeks? Desires more than anything?”

“I swear it.”

He feels the magic of an oath sliding through him, snagging and settling in his chest.

Lavellan smiles, smears over her teeth as she lets go.

Solas carefully pulls her arm out straight and her body arches, rigid as she lets him. She watches his movements, still smiling.

He pulls the knife out of its sheath.

“Hahren,” She whispers as he cuts her sleeve off, “Will you remember me, when I am gone?”

“Yes,” Solas says. It is not a lie.

“But how will you remember me? The foolish thing from Haven? The foolish, arrogant woman at the hearing? Or this pathetic one?”

“I will remember you as you are,” Solas promises, “The woman who took a favor from the wolf’s jaws.”

“How pretty,” Lavellan says. He looks at her, waits -

“Is there - is there anything else?”

“Nothing you are willing to give me,” She says, “But since you’re in the mood - call me da’len.”

“Da’len,” Solas says, throat closing, hand tightening around the knife.

“Tell me you’re sorry.”

“Ir abelas, da’len.”

“Tell me that you love me.”

“Ar lath ma, ma enaste. Emma abelas.”

Lavellan’s lip quirks up even as he slowly lowers the blade to her blackening skin.

“Now, tell me it will not hurt.”

“You will be free,” Solas says.

And then he collects.


	37. Chapter 37

When she opened the door, she wished for something, anything different.

Lavellan abruptly feels something, everything, burning its way straight up her chest, her throat - bile but worse and empty and filling.

It was tolerable, before, the distance between this body and her other. She could withstand any such separation, anything they did to her - taking her name, her body, her self, her future - if only because it would always lead her back to him. He was waiting for her.

She was always supposed to go back.

_They would be together, in this life, whole instead of separate._

Anything that happened here, Lavellan had thought, wouldn’t matter. Because he was waiting for her to come back and she would. No matter what, he - and he alone - would know her. Love her. Accept her.

She is the other side of his face, how could he not?

But he is gone, and all that safety has gone with it. She is empty, threatening to cave in and down. She has nothing and no one to return to. This separation is not one she can overcome.

Death has always brought them apart.

In the stories, Dirthamen and Falon’din could always find each other. Death was no obstacle, they passed through it freely to find each other on the other side, time and time again.

But Dirthamen and Falon’din have not lived as long as they have.

Infinite is countable and comparable.

Dirthamen and Falon’din, if theory is to be believed, are frozen in their current incarnations. Or if they are dead - they have not restarted their cycle of renewal. They are _together_.

Her other face has slipped through her fingers, no last words, no warning, no whisper of a thought.

What were her last words to him? What were his to her?

Lavellan draws in a breath and her nerves shiver - there is no matching heartbeat in all the world. She will not be seeing him for a long time. What if he dies waiting for her in his next life? What if they are set on different times - out of synch, unable to reach?

Her skin breaks out into goose flesh, afraid to the core.

She is no longer herself. Lavellan - does that name mean anything anymore? She is the last. The only.

Who carries her past? Who carries her future? Where do the roots of her tree go? How can she go forward without them?

Lavellan feels herself swaying, now. What was it all for?

 _“It’s for them_ ,” Lavellan closes her eyes even as her knees give out. She puts her hands over her hears.

The sound of the Anchor is louder than her own blood.

“It’s for them, even before you knew it, you did it for them, the people in front of you. You did it for the people you could see because the whole world was too much for you. And when you hated what the people in front of you were, you closed your eyes and made them new so you could do it for them. For Sera’s laugh even when she’s laughing at you, for Cassandra’s kindness even when she put you in shackles, and for the way Solas’ mouth smiles in his sleep even when he denies you.”

“But what about me?” Lavellan whispers.

“He loved you, he still does,” Cole tells her. He traces the root of her memory, the root of her heart all the way across Thedas to the faint whisper that imprinted itself on the land. “His memory is still there. I can follow it. When I trace the patterns they scatter over the forests and I can see the small moments left behind, not yet faded.”

Lavellan’s eyes close because she doesn’t want to be here, she wants to be there and then.

“He never regretted letting you go in his place,” Cole tells her, “He was so proud of you. He missed you, but was so proud of you.”

“I regret it,” Lavellan whispers, “He would not have made me die.”

“But would he have saved Cullen from the song that’s always in his ear? Would he have made Leliana stay her hand and keep her heart? Would he have been able to deny the Qun?”

“He is me, yes - he has always been better with others and with protecting others than I.”

“Then if he is you, and you are him, and he too, could do all those things, why would he have been able to save you when you couldn’t?”

Lavellan shakes her head, tucking herself down and away from the world that can help, that misses, that loves.

“Tell the Iron Bull what drains you dry,” I tell her, “Tell him. He knows it’s hollowed you out, he knows that you are hurting. But he doesn’t know how to fix it.”

“It cannot be fixed,” Lavellan answers, clothing her eyes in her hopeless mourning.

“You told him about the demon, _your_ demon,” I remind her, “He asked you, then. He was ready for you.”

“All of me?”

“You took him, Qun and all. He would take you, both of you.”

“I miss him,” Lavellan says, “I miss being part of him.”

“You are still part of him. Tell the Iron Bull, you don’t want to talk to me. You just want me to bring him back to you, but I can’t. Not really. You want Solas to bring him to you in dreams, but he can’t, either. He was only ever really yours.”

Lavellan’s hands curl around her ears, the sound of the Anchor in one, the sound of her heart in the other.

“It will tear you apart,” I tell her, “The two don’t have to be separate.”

“But I am,” Lavellan says, heart in her throat, “But I am separate.”

“You don’t have to keep it that way,” I try to be gentle. But she wears her hurt around her like a skin she thinks she can change into - like hart or wolf or bear. It transforms her. “Tell him.”

“Why won’t he tell me about Seheron?” She snaps.

“Because that is an old hurt that he cannot stand to relive, not even for you,” I huddle as close to her as she lets me, “You know that. That’s why you never ask. You are still living this pain.”

She shakes her head, “I am not living.”

“But he is,” I touch my fingers to the space next to her foot, “And he would live with you, he would live for you. Even if he is not the one you want to do that.”


	38. Chapter 38

“You know,” Bull says, arms crossed behind his head as he stares at the low canopy of the tent, “After this, no one will believe that we aren’t fucking.”

Lavellan pauses in the middle of tugging off a boot, turning around to look at him. No one ever accused Bull of being tactful.

“Just because we share a tent doesn’t mean we’re fucking,” Lavellan says. “No one’s saying Dorian and Cullen are fucking, and they’re sharing a tent.”

“True, but not everyone knows about Pavus’ preferences,” Bull says, “Just because you picked up on it doesn’t mean everyone else has. He’s not exactly throwing it around.”

And then -

“Rutherford _sleeps_?”

“You know,” Lavellan says rolling her eyes as she sets her boot aside and starts working on unlacing the other one, slow going with her cold fingers, “It really doesn’t matter where I sleep because no matter where I go everyone will think the same thing in the morning.”

She has a point.

“Varric,” Bull says.

Lavellan snorts and they fall into silence - them and the snow and the mountains and the vague sounds of fires and patrols outside. No singing, tonight.

There’s some color back to her face, and she’s moving around more today than yesterday. She’s not quite completely recovered, but she’s bouncing back well enough considering she got a mountain dropped on her.

“Does it bother you?” Lavellan says, narrow back turned to him as she shucks off her pants.

“What?”

“Does it bother you that people think we’re having sex?”

Bull shoots a look at her back.

“Does it bother _you_?”

“No,” Lavellan says, voice deceptively light and casual. Bull doesn’t doubt that answer, no. Lavellan doesn’t give a shit about who might or might not be putting their cocks or cunts where. But there’s something else about the question that touches against her raw, inward turned edges.

“Do you _want_ us to have sex?” Bull asks.

Lavellan doesn’t pause even as she lays her over coat over his legs, “No.”

She looks up at him.

“Do _you_ want us to have sex?”

Bull gives her a considering look, “Do you think I would do anything to you?”

Lavellan returns the look and pulls off the rest of her layers over her head in one quick movement.

“No,” She says, meeting his eyes before moving underneath the blankets to join him. Bull tenses because she’s fucking freezing, she lines up against his side, head resting on his arm, the bend of her arm fitting right against his. She opens her hand a little and the space between them glows a faint green. It reflect in her eyes.

Bull looks back at her.

“I do like you,” She says after a moment, eyes searching his face for something, “I don’t want you to think that I don’t. Because I do. I do like you, very, very much, the Iron Bull. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t - there are other people who are just as warm as you are.”

Bull snorts and her mouth flickers into a smile before she presses closer to his side, leaning in and earnest.

“I do like you,” She says and he takes a moment to wonder who she’s trying to tell that to. “You’re clever, the Iron Bull, very clever. And fun and kind and considerate and strong and wise, too. You make me laugh, the Iron Bull - most people would think that’s an easy thing, making me laugh, but they don’t realize that I don’t really feel it most of the time. I feel it when I laugh with you. So I _do_ like you, but I don’t _want_ you.”

“That’s fair,” Bull says.

Her eyes continue to search him.

“Do you want me?” She asks.

“Not anymore than I want anyone else,” Bull shrugs. Lavellan is attractive enough. Nice mouth, pretty lashes, not half bad figure - though she could stand to eat more. Bull turns himself towards her a little, just a little. Not enough room to turn completely without putting himself on her. “And you don’t want me to want you, so I don’t really think that’s what you’re trying to say here, Boss.”

“No,” Lavellan admits, “Bull. I don’t want you. I don’t want you to want me.”

And then, softly, her eyes pulling back while still looking down into him.

“ _I don’t want anyone_.”

“That’s fair, too,” Bull says when he realizes she’s waiting for him to say something back.

“You don’t really need to want someone to have sex with them,” Lavellan says, a rush that’s almost a whisper, “But when you like someone aren’t you supposed to want them? I like you - more than I’ve ever really liked anyone, man or woman alive, and I should want you but I don’t. Why don’t I want you anymore than I want anyone else? Why is there no one I want?”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.”

Lavellan closes her eyes.

“I told you about how my people use sex, right?” Bull says. Lavellan nods, hair almost tickling against his skin. “Sex isn’t the same thing as wanting or even liking someone. Sex is for having babies or venting stress. Sometimes it’s even a tool. But it doesn’t mean you like someone. It doesn’t mean you have a good relationship with someone. Shit, Lavellan, sex doesn’t even mean you know a guy.”

Lavellan curls her head down, the top of her head brushing against Bull’s chest, body growing stiff.

“What counts is the other stuff,” Bull says, voice low and careful, “Like if they make you laugh, for real or not. If they listen to you, if they try to get along with you. If you try to get along with them. If you remember what they like and what they don’t, if you’re willing to put your preferences aside for them or negotiate it out if you can’t. It doesn’t matter what shit you get up to in bed. Or don’t.”

Lavellan doesn’t respond.

Bull is careful when he slowly pulls one of his arms out from underneath the blanket and puts it on her head. His palm cradles the back of her head and presses her forehead close to his chest, thumb running over the top of her hair.

Her breathing is careful but it stutters against his skin.

“You don’t have to want someone that way to be with someone,” Bull promises. “I don’t want you, Lavellan. But I’ll be with you.”


	39. Chapter 39

He almost has the vashoth where he wants him, chain wrapped around its neck and pulling back - close enough to finally chain and lock the beast down when it lets out a long, deep rattle of a below. It twists an arm up and grabs one of his horns, yanking him forward and down.

They tumble, the hold of the chain around the vashoth’s neck slipping and he feels the thing get away from him. He reaches out and grabs for it, clipping an ear and grunting when it lunges forward and smashes their heads together, horns locking.

The clear space gives way as they grapple - in a dream time and actual physical space don’t really matter - and it feels like they suddenly are going down hill.

There shouldn’t be a hill. This is new. This is not part of his training.

This is not part of the mental space he has created to trap the vashoth.

Hissrad immediately doesn’t like this.

The air is warm and cool at once, moving and alive. There’s the feeling of soft loam and smoothed down rock and grass and plants beneath him even as he tries to pin the vashoth down.

Hissrad looks up and catches glimpses of not-quite right sky, and not too far away -

Lavellan.

The vashoth keens, low and grating, bucking even as Hissrad tries to get a chain around one of its wrists.

Lavellan sleeps, one arm and a hand exposed as she lies curled on her side, half on a rock, half in the field. She’s bare, except for the skin of a bear she’s curled herself in.

A large wolf lies next to her, looking at him.

This is not part of Hissrad’s inner space. He looks down at the vashoth and the vashoth bares its teeth up at him and then surges forward, throwing Hissrad off, twisting and moving towards Lavellan.

Hissrad pushes himself forward, barely manages to grab the vashoth by the back of his trousers and drags him back with everything he has.

 _You do not touch her_.

Lavellan’s voice, somehow amplified, stirs and Hissrad and vashoth look up -

“I - _no_ , I didn’t - Hahren? _Hahren - helani, ir’abelas -_ This isn’t what I wanted - “

The wolf is gone and Lavellan sits up, skin slipping from her body as she turns to look for it. She quickly turns back to them, scrambling up the rock, the skin of the bear held tightly in one fist even as she crouches and watches them.

“Wake up,” She says, even though her voice is low it glistens over Hissrad’s skin.

He looks away from her to the vashoth, who’s hand has torn up grass and flowers as it strains to break away from him and to her.

Dream or no dream -

 _You will not hurt her_.

Hissrad forces gravity to work as he remembers it and pushes the beast down, grunts when he almost gets an elbow to the face, and grabs one of its horns, _yanking_.

Lavellan’s face - when she looked at them.

It’s everything Hissrad knows it to be. Imagined it to be if she ever found out. He has tasted enough of her to be able to assemble this face in his mind, in his dream, without seeing it awake.

Frightened, shocked, horrified.

Disgusted.

“I did not want this,” She says and Hissrad shakes his head, because he did not want this, either. And then he closes his senses to everything else here, and focuses on containing the dangerous thing.

This is not part of the dream as he knows it. He will not risk anything from here. He does not know how far the vashoth in him has spread, how corrupted he has become, especially if it’s starting to affect his dreams.

But if he fails here - if he fails to contain it here, in what he guesses could be like a simulation of the waking world _-_

 _You will not hurt her_.

Hissrad feels his lip curl up - hate and disgust and anger and fear - as the vashoth twists and looks him in the eye and lunges with one hand at him, the other hand pulling at the chain that’s growing slippery with sweat and grime, harder and harder for Hissrad to hold onto.

They grapple, because the beast wants to be free and Hissrad can’t permit that. There’s too much on the line.

Distantly and far away, there is a woman who he can’t afford to disappoint, to hurt.

(Lavellan has not slept in their room for a while. He understands.

The way she looks at him now - like she’s seeing him for the first time, afraid and uncertain. Those first few weeks at Haven, the back and forth testing and probing and careful glances where neither of them wanted to give all their cards away.

It hurts. It hurts really fucking bad to be back to that.

But he deserves it. This is what he is. This is what he has always been.

But he can’t let her see more than that - he cannot let her see the dangerous thing.)

A distant roar like sound under water, and there is no warning when something shoves between them - thick and hot and rapidly growing.

Hissrad lands on his back, the dream blurring before his eye for a moment before it clears, and a bear stands between them, reared on its legs, body moving with its breathing - matching the strange undulation of the sky and earth.

Hissrad sees the vashoth move, and he moves too but the bear rounds on the vashoth and roars in its face, then just as quickly turns around and roars at him.

It stands between them, and then slowly collapses on itself, the skin of the bear sliding away as Lavellan pulls it off.

“I don’t understand,” She says, looking at neither of them but her own hands. “Leave.”

She gestures at the vashoth, then at Hissrad.

They both watch her.

This is not part of Hissrad’s dream. Dream-Lavellan - in all the few times he has allowed her to take form - has not done this. Dream-Lavellan has never acted this way before.

Hissrad slowly reaches out for her, ready to grab her and throw her aside so she isn’t between him and the beast, but the beast snarls and lunges first.

Hissrad throws himself forward, and rams himself straight into the vashoth. It’s like hitting a fucking statue - but warmer, hotter underneath fake paper skin. A disguise.

The vashoth strains against him, and it lets out this sound that Hissrad only associates with the sound made when Real-Lavellan snaps lightning at something big and angry.

The vashoth hisses into his ear and he blocks out the sound of it. There is nothing it can say - he knows it all. It is all wrong. It is every dark thought, every single truth the Qun has promised. It’s very fight, every fuck, it’s every single second of fucking _euphoria_ when he’s bleeding and it’s the swoop in his stomach when he sees a sharp edge. It’s every single violent thought he’s been trained to control since the beginning. It is everything dangerous about him without the promise of the Qun to keep it under control.

Someday it will break free of his attempts at controlling it.

Hissrad sincerely hopes he’s either dead or too feeble to do any real harm before someone cuts his head off when that day comes.

“Stop,” Lavellan yells in the background, “ _Stop_. I don’t want you to fight. _I don’t want this_.”

Hissrad manages to get the vashoth under him, and he gets the chain under the vashoth’s chin, pulling up. He can’t kill the thing.

It will come back.

But he can contain it.

He just has to figure out how to drag it back to where it belongs.

He yanks its head up and it whistles a breath through clenched teeth, blood and spit, even as it claws at the ground - one hand trying to get at her, one hand doing its level best to break free.

He snarls down back at it and Lavellan sobs and his chest seizes and he pulls all that much harder on the chains, forcing the vashoth down.

He will keep her safe.

“Stop,” Dream-Lavellan cries, “You’re hurting him, stop.”

He looks up when the vashoth keens, its eye sliding away from him to her - and Lavellan is only a few paces away, skin abandoned, hands reaching out.

“ _Stop_ ,” Hissrad grinds out through his teeth, feeling the tension along the chain as two forces pull in opposite directions. “ _Don’t come closer_.”

Dream-Lavellan looks at him, eyes wide and wet, her mouth dark and trembling and the vashoth snarls more things that Hissrad refuses to hear.

“You’re hurting him,” Lavellan repeats, and comes closer anyway and Hissrad doesn’t have a free though to stop her.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Hissrad yells, control fraying at the edges. He can feel the chains rattle, stress and tension.

“Why?” Lavellan asks, because even in dreams there’s no escaping that kind of trouble.

“ _Dangerous_ ,” Hissrad grinds out through his teeth at the same time the vashoth whispers something through blood and spit.

Dream-Lavellan cocks her head, eyes fixed on the vashoth.

“What did he say?” She asks.

“ _Get back_ ,” Hissrad snaps even as the vashoth continues to speak - “ _Don’t talk to her_.”

 _Don’t you take her from me_.

“What did he say?” She repeats slowly creeping forward, lowering her body onto all fours - eye to eye with the vashoth and the vashoth’s hand is close enough to reach up and grab her face, her throat -

“ _Fucking get back_ ,” Hissrad bellows even as he feels the chains crack, infinite fissures that threaten to fall apart, all of his control slipping, the vashoth about to be free to hurt and destroy and shame. It slides through him, chilling and hot-prickling, shame. He cannot see her face as she looks into the eyes of that thing he has been trying so damn hard to keep away.

“ _Kadan_ ,” The Iron Bull whispers, looking up at her, her face framed by strange dream-blue and wrong and twisted because he’s never seen her look this pained, this heart broken before and it’s wrong that _she looks at him that way_. Kadan, and the word-title feels so fucking _right_ to finally set free, to hear, _all this time -_ all this time, pent up inside, behind layers and layers of the lies that he’s forced down his own throat. Dangerous things.

Dream-Lavellan flows forward, taking the Iron Bull’s face into her hands - blood and dirt and filth and _wrongness_ -

Her hands glow white-hot and cool as her eyes search him.

“You don’t need this,” She whispers, voice shaking, and the Iron Bull wheezes, even as her hands go to his throat, the chains, the Qun.

She squeezes her fingers underneath them, to where they dig against his neck and she leans over him, the soft sweet skin of her breast beating against his forehead as she slides her fingers through the chains. A single clean and perfectly easy cut.

Hissrad watches, body frozen as the Iron Bull buries his face into her thighs breathing a long and tired breath into her skin, arm circling around her - warm and safe, not hurt, not angry, not disgusted -

 _Kadan_ , the Iron Bull repeats into her skin. Because it’s right. It’s been right, for the longest damn time - but it wasn’t safe. It was never safe. He couldn’t give it to her, because the Qun would not allow it but there is no Qun anymore, not for him, but it still wasn’t safe, _he isn’t safe_ -

Lavellan curls over the Iron Bull, hands sweeping over his neck, his shoulders, his back.

She looks up at Hissrad, reaching up and sliding her hand across his face, running her thumb over his jaw, sliding her hand down his neck, down the center his chest, his belly.

A single clean and perfect crack down the middle.

Hissrad’s breath is a soft, pathetic rattle. _It can’t be real_ because this is a dream and it would never be this easy. Things aren’t this easy, not for dangerous things like him, not for dangerous things like this. He can’t - Hissrad can’t allow this.

“You’re heart sick,” She says to him, disbelieving and sad all at once, “I didn’t realize - I didn’t know that you could be - but you are, aren’t you? You’re heart sick.”

One hand sweeps over the back of the Iron Bull’s head, his body heaving with tired and strained breathing. The other splays over frozen skin.

“You’ve been torn,” Lavellan bows her head, closes her eyes. “I did not mean for this to happen to you - I didn’t realize it _would_.”

Lavellan looks up, eyes wet, face flushed.

“I had thought that - but no. This entire time, it was this. It was _this_ that hurt you, that troubled you. The distance, the difference - it was _me_ and it was you and it was _this_.”

Hissrad reaches for her. The Iron Bull snarls.

He can’t afford to hurt her.

Lavellan reaches and guides Hissrad’s head to rest against her shoulder - both Hissrad and Bull bent into her body.

“When you wake,” Lavellan whispers to them both, cheek resting on Hissrad’s head and arm curled around his shoulders, her other hand gentle on the nape of the Iron Bull’s neck, “We must speak. Face to face, where neither of us can run or hide. We have left this alone for too long. I have left you alone for too long. I must make amends. _Find me_.”

And then, so softly, so clearly, it could be carved into him -

“ _Wake up_.”


	40. Chapter 40

Dreaming with Solas nearby is always - it’s always an _experience_. Lavellan rarely sleeps close to him, rarely volunteers to do it, because of that. The dreams he induces in her are never restful. These days she needs all the rest she can get and more.

But Lavellan’s dreams, as of late, on their own haven’t been restful either, so she supposes that there isn’t really any point.

Solas, although he isn’t actively looking at her, still emits the aura of _expectant_.

Lavellan, self conscious and fully aware of the lecture she’s about to receive once they enter the Fade, closes her eyes and wills herself to sleep anyway.

When she opens her eyes they are in a vague, nebulous space, similar to where they always begin these lessons unless there’s a concrete plan Solas has in store.

“You sought me out,” Solas says, tilting his head to the side, “There is a problem which you want advice on. Am I incorrect?”

“No,” Lavellan says, and he reaches out, tilt to his mouth as he touches her hair, pulling a strand forward and running his fingers through it. She takes the touch for what it is,  not what it means.

In dreams Solas is always more freer with his affection. She doesn’t know why, she won’t ask. Perhaps it’s because there is no one to see him be soft. Or maybe, because it is a dream, it doesn’t count. Whatever the reason, Lavellan appreciates it, though she would never say it.

“There is a problem that you have been thinking over for some time,” Solas says, slowly walking around her, hand through her hair, “But, Lavellan, you are in the wrong skin for such a thing.”

He returns to standing in front of her, and in a fluid motion takes off his tunic - shifting between man and wolf in the moment.

Lavellan watches him, and he watches her back, waiting.

“Why are you a wolf?” Lavellan asks.

“Because it pleases me to be so,” Solas replies. “Change. You do not want to be Lavellan, I can see it in you. What is it that you need to be, instead?”

“You think like someone who studied Ghilan’nain’s craft,” Lavellan says, “And you are right.”

She closes her eyes and reaches her hands over her shoulders, and lets her heart free. She feels the familiar skin materialize between her fingers, and draws it over herself - larger and heavier and thicker and infinitely more proud than the skin of an elf-woman.

“Bear,” Solas muses, tilting his head, “Fascinating.”

“Why?” Lavellan asks. As a bear, she looks down on him. Impudent thing, he who questions, he who stands aloft, he who thinks he is powerful. She is the bear. She is the mother, she is the keeper, the thinker, the wanderer. She could knock his head from his shoulders with a touch.

“The bear is a form for isolation, Lavellan,” Solas says, slowly moving around her, inspecting her. She allows it. “The bear hibernates, the bear roams, the bear is alone. But complete in its solitude. The bear is the shape of one who has all the knowledge needed and needs to put it together into a shape they can use.”

“And what is the wolf?” Lavellan asks as Solas moves away from her.

“A wolf is a wolf is a wolf,” Solas says, “But we are not here for those questions. We are not here for you to ask things of _me_ , are we?”

Lavellan is silent. Solas turns to her and gestures his head.

“Lead the way.”

“I do not know where we are going,” Lavellan says.

“The bear does,” Solas replies. “Lead.”

So Lavellan does. She closes her eyes and falls deep. The bear rises from within, scenting the air and moving. The wolf can be ignored. He is no threat.

The bear is powerful. The bear is all knowing. The bear is everything she needs.

She follows the scent of warmth, of stillness, of peace - sweet like summer grass and fluffed air like candy floss and dry heat on the back of the tongue.

The bear moves through the grass, and the wolf lopes ahead to climb onto a rock perfect for basking.

“Ah,” Solas says as Lavellan drifts to the surface again, “Interesting choice.”

“Do you know this place?” Lavellan asks, slipping out of the skin of the bear, carrying the heavy pelt around her shoulders as she approaches the rock.

“No, and yes,” Solas replies, ears moving as he scents the air, “This is not a dream. But it is not _not_ a dream. It is a place that always exists within the dreaming, belonging to no one. Everyone.”

Lavellan feels the soft touch of Solas’ mana but it fades quickly before she can try to think about it.

“Fascinating,” Solas looks at her, jumping off the rock and sitting at its base, “I am not in control of this space, but you are.”

She watches him, unsure of what to make about the pleased look about him, the curious look.

“You - you’re happy about not being in control?”

“I am amused that this place has picked you out of the two of us,” Solas replies. “Why has the bear brought you here, I wonder?”

Solas turns to examine the dream field.

“You’re different, here,” Lavellan says as she watches him - tail gently swaying, ears perked up.

“How so?” Solas asks as he inspects some of the flowers.

“You’re - “ Lavellan pauses.

“Jovial?” Solas asks, “More talkative? Less formal? Vocal? Open? Expressive?”

“Yes, but - “ Lavellan hesitates. Solas’ ears turn in her direction.

“But?”

“Easier,” Lavellan says, “I was going to say that you’re _easier_.”

And then the wolf is on her, large, swallowing space and the dream-sky, impossibly huge and heavy, teeth parted over her face.

“ _Never_ be so foolish, so stupid, so naive as to say that in a dream,” Solas snarls, “I can permit you saying that, thinking that of people out there, in the waking world. You may be deceived into thinking that out there - the risks are significantly lower. You can recover from that sort of deception. But _never_ think that of anything in the Fade, Lavellan. There is nothing _easy_ in the Fade. You must _never_ feel that way here.”

Lavellan’s skin prickles with fear and she doesn’t think as she slips into bear again, throwing him off and snarling into his face. Solas jumps back, body crouched low to the ground, lowering himself in submission to her. As he should.

She is the bear. She is greater than he and all his kin.

“Understand me, Lavellan,” Solas says, “The Fade is a wondrous place. But those wonders hide many dangers. You must not fall to them.”

“Yes,” Lavellan says, slowly pulling herself out of the bear and retreating away from him onto the rock. “I understand.”

Solas abruptly softens, body low as he slowly approaches.

Lavellan tentatively reaches her arm out and he slides under it, pressing his muzzle to her belly, eyes closing.

“I do not do it to hurt you,” He says, “I do it because I worry for you. You are learning, adapting, so quickly. Promise me, da’enaste, you must not let your guard down.”

“I promise,” Lavellan says as Solas rests his head on her lap.

“Tell me, what answer do you wish to find here?” Solas asks her after a moment. “What troubles you and why are you not seeking council with your favorites?”

Lavellan freezes. The wolf chuckles, warm against her skin.

“Did you think that I haven’t noticed, da’len? You have not slept with the Iron Bull since his break from the Qun, nor have you spent significant time with him. What has changed?”

“What hasn’t changed?” Lavellan tangles her fingers into his fur, “He is not the same. He’s - Cassandra says I’m responsible for the things I tame and that _I’m_ the reason why he left.”

“Wise words,” Solas says, “She is a wise woman.”

“But - I don’t know if I can do that,” Lavellan says, “She says he doesn’t hate me but - he’s distant when he looks at me. It’s not the same anymore. I’m - I’m afraid when I look at him. I can’t even look at him because I don’t know what I’ll see. The Qun sent people to assassinate him out of courtesy and he didn’t even warn me and when I asked him about it he basically said to leave it alone and - I don’t know what to do about this. About him.”

“You cannot leave him as is,” Solas says, “Cassandra is correct. Him leaving the Qun is because of you. You broke him from the yoke of the Qun, it is your responsibility to see it through, to guide his transition. You must help him rebuild what the Qun has convinced him was a wasteland. He is looking to you for support, for guidance.”

“But he doesn’t want to be near me.” Lavellan’s heart squeezes in her chest.

“Has he said so?”

“No.”

“Then why do you say that?”

“Because - I can feel it when I’m with him,” Lavellan curls around his head because her heart demands she bends and breaks and she doesn’t want to. “Because even just looking at him there’s this tension in my chest and in the air like he’s looking through me instead of at me. Like he doesn’t see me anymore and maybe he doesn’t want to and when I look at him all I can see is - I just see the way his heart broke when that destroyer went up in flames and the way he wouldn’t look at me at all on the way back to Skyhold.”

Lavellan gasps a breath.

“Hahren, I was so angry at him. I hated him a little for even making me have to give that order and - what if he hates me, too? Love sours so easily and I - “

“You love him,” Solas says when she cannot continue.

“At night I dream,” Lavellan’s voice tears itself out of her even though she closes her eyes to it, “I dream that he’s getting hurt and he’s killing himself because that’s how much he hates not being in the Qun, how much he hates what he thinks he’s become. I dream that he’s dying and I’m just there watching and no matter what I do, who I help, he dies because either way its him. I just keep watching him die and kill himself and I just - “

“Lavellan,” Solas says, “He is a grown man. It is true that you are responsible for him as you are the one who has broken him from the Qun, but he also bears some of the responsibility for his own actions. He is responsible for how he makes you feel and how he treats you. Speak to him, Lavellan.”

“I’m afraid.”

“My da’len has never been a coward,” Solas chides.

“Your da’len has never been faced with the responsibility of the life of the man she loves,” Lavellan replies.

“Fair enough,” Solas replies, chuffing at her. “Did you come here to seek answers about how to see the Iron Bull, then? How to respond to him apparent distance from you?”

“Yes, no.” Lavellan shakes her head. “I’m not sure. I just - I’m too close to the problem, I think. I just wanted to get away for a while. I wanted to see the situation from a different perspective. Away from the Storm Coast and the dreadnought destroyer and the blood. Just me and him and how it was and how it could be.”

“Then lay back and close your eyes,” Solas says moving away from her, “And let your thoughts build. Bring it forward. I will stay. I will watch and make sure you don’t attract anything else.”

Lavellan lies back, curling the bear skin around her as she looks into the power blue dream-sky.

“Thank you,” She says as she closes her eyes and wraps herself into the second dream.

Lavellan does not hear his answer as she draws the image of the Iron Bull onto the back of her eyes, the sound of his breathing. Would he be raw and angry? Calm and collected? Which would she prefer?

To talk to him again - as she did before - that is what she wants most. As if this whole ugliness hadn’t come to pass. No Qun between them -

Lavellan startles to the sound of a struggle, and she feels hahren’s paw quickly snag through her hair and then he’s gone.

Her eyes open and she turns, searching for him but he is gone - disappeared from this dream and when she turns she sees -

She had left him to escape the dream.

This is not what she wanted.


	41. Chapter 41

“Look at you,” Lavellan coos, tickling the baby underneath his chin, “With your little feet and toes and hands and everything. You’re absolutely adorable and you know it.”

The baby gurgles at her, happy with the attention as Dalish bounces him on her lap.

“Are you going to grow up clever and smart?” Lavellan asks him, wiggling her finger as the baby clumsily grabs at it, “What sort of thoughts are going on in that head of yours, I wonder?”

He blows a spit bubble at her.

Lavellan coos.

“You’re adorable, I want _ten_.”

Everyone immediately turns to the Iron Bull who groans and rubs the heel of his hand against his forehead, pint thumping down onto the table, heavily.

“Dorian,” Lavellan calls out without missing a beat - seemingly oblivious to the looks being shot at the Iron Bull - turns to the man and everyone’s eyes swivel to him, Dorian resembles something between a deer that’s stumbled onto a den of wolves and someone about to be walked into a room full of people in nothing but his under clothes and feathers. “How many do you think we could reasonably afford to raise at once, do you think?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me,” Dorian says, remarkably calm as he puts down his cup with steady hands, “But I immediately dislike it and ask that everyone present stop looking at me. Right now.”

Lavellan turns to the empty space next to her, and starts nodding, as if listening to something - someone.

“You’re absolutely right,” Lavellan says to the space next to her before turning on Cullen, “Cullen, what were you like as a child? Precocious? Serious? Studious? Clever? I suppose whether you were clever or not doesn’t matter, that can be trained - but there’s something to be said of a natural temperament.”

It’s Cullen’s turn to look like a man who’s being marched straight at an execution squad, but he does it with the grave solemnity of a soldier about to be dressed down by a superior officer.

“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow this line of questioning, Inquisitor,” Cullen says.

Lavellan continues to look at him, eyes narrowing before she continues, “Cullen.”

“Yes, Inquisitor?” The man looks like he’s actually bracing himself to be struck by lightning.

But one can never truly brace themselves to be struck by Lavellan, so it’s a moot point. Admirable effort, but moot.

“Cullen, have you ever considered fathering children?”

Cullen starts choking and Sera bursts into laughter and slaps him on the back. It isn’t the helpful sort of slap meant to clear airways, but more of a playful - mocking - one. (“ _Way to go, Cully-wully with the hair_.”)

“I mean, I know you had _vows_ ,” Lavellan continues, ignoring how Cullen is turning a strange shade of _orange_ and purple at once, “And that vows are important and such, but have you ever thought about having children? Because I’m imagining your hair on a baby and it would be simply lovely, Cullen, and Cole agrees with me, too. In fact Cole suggested it. He’s seen images of babies that you could have in other people’s heads and he thinks they’re incredibly charming.”

Cassandra takes pity on the man and pounds him on the back once.

He actually slides forward in his seat and almost tips out of it. Blackwall and Sera both shoot out their arms to pull him back.

Cole, presumably, starts talking to Lavellan again - Cole is in one of those strange moods where he doesn’t want to be seen, except for Lavellan - because Lavellan tilts her head and then rounds onto Dorian.

“Dorian, what about you?”

“What about me?” Dorian says, looking ready to bolt.

Josephine and Krem both stretch out their legs to block him from being able to leave. He glares at them both.

“ _You’re_ impossible because it is practically law that one cannot be mad with you,” Dorian says to Josephine then turns to Krem, “And you are impossible because you’re one of _his_.”

Krem smirks even as Dorian jerks his thumb at Bull who grins.

“What did your ears and nose look like when you were a child?” Lavellan asks, “Did they still look proportionate? Or were they something you had to grow into? Because your nose and Cassandra’s facial structure would go wonderfully.”

Cassandra and Dorian look at each other and recoil.

“ _Disgusting_ ,” Cassandra mutters at the same time Dorian takes a long drink.

“And Sera’s hands are so lovely,” Lavellan muses, “The most lovely hands, really.”

“Out of curiosity,” Varric says, “As morbid and ill advised as it is, what are you doing?”

“I’m making the perfect baby,” Lavellan says even as she plays with the baby boy’s toes. “Vivienne has the most wonderful proportions, and Skinner’s skin is absolutely flawless to the point where glass looks rough, that would be _wonderful_. And Solas has such nice shoulders underneath all those layers.”

Everyone turns to look at Solas, who does a remarkable job at pretending to be a statue. It would almost be believable if Vivienne weren’t smirking at him.

“Thank you, darling,” Vivienne says, “I must admit to a certain amount of illusion made by the shapes of my wardrobe. Such is the way of things.”

“A lovely figure,” Lavellan sighs, looking up at the ceiling. “And the baby would definitely need to be as clever as the Iron Bull. The Iron Bull’s sort of clever. And Dagna’s, too. Both. Their clever is the best sort of clever and if you could combine those two types of clever into one person it would be _incredible_. Krem, do you come by your wit naturally, or is that due to exposure?”

“I’m one hundred percent a natural asshole your worship, stamped and signed at the port of entry into Orlais,” Krem says, saluting her with two fingers.

“Agreed,” Half the room says.

“And what comes from you?” Josephine asks as Lavellan continues to chatter about this hypothetical child in between cooing at baby boy still in Dalish’s lap.

Lavellan hums, then turns to look at Bull, “What’s my best physical feature?”

“What, I can only pick one?” Bull says, “Thanks for putting me on the spot like that, Boss.”

Lavellan just continues to look at him, expectant. Bull sighs.

“Voice,” Bull says, “You’ve got a good voice.”

“My voice, then,” Lavellan says, “The baby gets my voice.”


	42. Chapter 42

“So the good news is, you’re alive,” Varric says, sitting by her knee as Lavellan’s eyes slide over to him - almost entirely closed and dark and bruised on her wan face, “The bad news is that it doesn’t look like the Inquisition will be that way for much longer.”

Lavellan’s lip twitches up - dark and sickly and almost _blue_ \- “You’ve got it the other way around, Varric. The good news is that the Inquisition may or may not make it. The bad news is that I’m still breathing while those pompous bastards argue about it two buildings over.”

Lavellan’s hand curls into the bedsheets as she starts to shake, Varric leans down and gets the bucket - the stupidly ornate and decorate bucket - and holds it out for her, helping her sit up as Lavellan gags and starts hacking the liquified mess of her internal organs into the thing.

It still comes out more black than anyone is comfortable with, but every time Lavellan sees it she just smirks. Sharp and just as poisonous as the thing that made her this way.

“This,” Lavellan wheezes, voice rasping out of her - Varric can feel what he thinks is probably every bone in her body through his hand on her back as she rattles out her words - “Is what you call _alive_?”

“You’re talking,” Varric says, “I have a really, _really_ low bar, kid.”

Lavellan snorts again, hand slowly unclenching from the bed sheets as she leans back and wipes black from her mouth, looking at it and sneering before spitting into the bucket. A rattling smack of black tar.

She turns to look at him, that same sharp clarity in her eyes that Varric is pretty sure she didn’t have _before_ this whole - thing.

(Not before the Inquisition, not before Haven, he means _before Solas_. Before - before losing the Anchor.)

“Do you feel sorry for me, Varric?” Lavellan asks, voice a low, rattling and really, really disturbing shadow of what it used to be.

Lavellan’s voice, before, was smooth. Graceful. It was a voice that was good for stories and songs and jokes. Lavellan’s voice, before, was clear and it rang out over a courtyard or a fucking desert hell scape; whether it was laughing or belting out commands.

Now, though - now, though.

He thinks _Corypheus_ , he thinks _Solas_ , he thinks _Fenris_ , he thinks _Anders_ , he thinks _Leliana_ , and he thinks _Vivienne_ \- Varric thinks of all the dangerous people with dark things and darker plans. Her voice is this low, raw thing, like dragging something over rock even as that thing digs its nails into the ground and moans for help. Her voice is that same rasp over stone in shadows at night.

Lavellan’s voice doesn’t so much scream and shout and proclaim things, so much as it softly promises them.

Varric doesn’t know how - but without the Anchor, with the treat of losing the Inquisition, with what looks like almost all of them getting ready to part ways once again and leave her when it’s the worst possible time, _Lavellan is more dangerous than she’s ever been_.

“Well,” Varric says - because as terrifying as this kid is? He knows her. Or at least, he _knew_ her. And Varric has always been a sucker for the people he knows. Even when they don’t turn out the way they always wanted to. The way he always wanted them to be. He’s a damned bleeding heart like that. “You did lose an arm.”

Lavellan’s teeth make a brilliant show of white that matches the rest of her skin - but more alive. Less drained and bruised and tinged like rot.

“Lose,” Lavellan says as she lies back, hair pooling around her head, “Is an interesting word, Varric. It implies that I was careless. The word lose, connotes that there is a _winner_. It implies a lack of skill, some sort of oversight, a light handed game in which I overlooked something and, there it goes.”

Lavellan’s teeth raise their hackles all at once.

“I did not _lose_ my arm. I did not _lose_ the Anchor, Varric. They were _taken_. They were _stolen_. They were _plundered from my dying body_.”

“But you aren’t dead,” Varric says, because he _knows her_. Because he knows that even before this - before Solas, before Corypheus, before Adamant, before all of that shit - he knows her. And she’s always been a poor fucking loser when it came to people fucking with her things.

Lavellan has always been possessive of _people_ \- not things.

“You aren’t dead,” Varric repeats, raising an eyebrow, “So what are you gonna do about it, and do you need help?”

Lavellan’s eyes look deep into him, sifting through every lie he’s ever told her, every single flaw he’s ever shown her, and every single time he’s ever made her smile.

“No,” Lavellan muses, sinking into her hair and pillows, “I am not dead.”

“And?”

Lavellan looks away from him, towards the window, towards the building where Josephine and the others are still - remarkably - fighting for the Inquisition’s legitimacy.

“Who says that we have to disband just because they say we do?” Lavellan says, “Solas wanted me dead. _I_ wanted me dead. But I did not die. And he doesn’t know that. The Inquisition can continue as it always has. And have we not always done our best work from the shadows, Bull?”

Varric turns to the man who’s been silently sitting in the corner for the entire duration of this little visit.

Bull grins, shrugs, “As long as there are things that need beating. Or killing. Or _both_.”

“I’m thinking we start with murder,” Lavellan muses, turning to Varric, “How hard is it to forge documents for a dead body? And how quickly could you forge a binding will?”

“Depends on how hard you’re trying,” Varric says. “Who are you murdering?”

“The Inquisitor of Thedas,” Lavellan replies, “Is about to succumb to some - understandably - deadly injuries in the name of protecting Thedas from war.”

Varric raises an eyebrow even as Bull starts to chuckle, dark and _eager_.

Lavellan smirks, “And then, Varric. We’re going to do what we do best.”

“Piss people off?”

“There’s that,” Bull says.

“And,” Lavellan’s eyes spark - that familiar thing from Haven, _years ago_ , but darker, sharper, older, and _refined_ , practiced - as the right side of her face and neck twinge a faint green, “We’re going to kill a god.”


	43. Chapter 43

It was fear.

Fear for the memory of a kiss that never happened.

I slide around her, putting my arms around her and pressing the suggestion of my body against her back as I press my face into the side of her neck the way Dorian has done dozens, hundreds, of times for her. I cannot do it the same, I am not Dorian-shaped. Dorian is not Dorian-shaped, sometimes.

Instead of relaxing, melting, bubbling, the way she does when Dorian in Dorian’s-shape does this, she freezes.

I catch it, a flicker of anger, resentment, bitter things that she’s quick to push away before they can spread. A caught droplet of ink isolated before it hits the clear pool.

Guilt, now, that spreads slowly and heavy. Shame.

I shake my head against her skin. She doesn’t need to be. It isn’t her fault. I understand. She knows I can’t help but see, feel, know her - I don’t look, it just happens. But I know that there are things she doesn’t want to be seen, doesn’t want to share with me or with anyone.

Neither of us is guilty for being as we are.

“You are afraid,” I whisper, just for her. For the past few days, almost exclusively for her.

She shakes her head, not denial, exactly. Ruefulness that’s sweet and fleeting, a comet skipping down the throat.

“Cole, was I always so obvious? I thought I was so good, so clever.”

“I know you,” I reply, “You are good. But I know you. Sometimes I am you. I’m sorry - there’s another person who was you and isn’t, but I can’t help that, you just - you’re so _present_.”

And I am not. I am everywhere, everything, whatever new pain that must be I shall-will-am match it. It’s so tempting to just be solid like she is, so sure, so certain, so steady even though she is an ocean underneath ice, she is constant tides that come and go as they please but will still be there and deep and dark and endlessly-perpetually old and young but never exactly timeless because she is both she is neither, she is _all at once_.

Her breath leaves her, silently and we both continue to look down at him.

“You are afraid,” I repeat. “He wouldn’t want you to be.”

She has not spoken much since Adamant.

She envies me, my ability to disappear. She can disappear too, but she is denied the ability to make that choice. It is a choice she can make, but not an easy one. She is bound by too many things, people, witnesses. Not even I, sharp as my blades are, can cut her out of them so easily.

She is a memory that I - or _that_ \- can ever take from anyone.

“I almost lost him,” She says, softly in a language that is not his or theirs, but hers. Hers. Shared with me out of loneliness.

A mace to the chest. I taste the echo of a crunch and flinch, arms still around her.

“You’re upset,” I say, “Because you are ashamed.”

“I love him too much,” She whispers.

“He knows,” I promise, “ _He knows without you having to say it_. It’s in the way your skin gets hot when he calls you _kadan_ , when he sleeps, when he doesn’t react - and it isn’t on purpose, he isn’t doing it for you, it just simply _is_ \- when you touch your hands and your lips to his eye or push your way into his arms and hands and legs. It’s in the way you trace _your own name, the one you lost, the one you will find again_ into his ribs. He knows you love him. He loves you. You know this.”

Bold, drawing on the power of the ocean and the solid land it rocks onto, slides onto, kisses - a sanguine shivering susurrus of silence.

“Yes,” She croaks, ice.

“He told you,” I continue, “He tells you every time. He knows you need to hear it. See it. He gives it to you freely. Like he gave everything else. Gives.”

“Yes,” She crackles.

“Then why are you afraid?”

“I almost lost him,” We both fall silent as his breathing shifts, painful sounding. “What if I didn’t make it in time? What if it was just that much faster - stronger?”

“But it wasn’t.”

“And if it was?”

“Is that why you look at him that way?” I tilt my head.

Neither of us say it.

Not yet.

“You didn’t lose him, there’s time,” I say instead.

“Ah,” She whispers, and opens her hand. We both look down into the abyss. “But he will lose me.”

I blink without closing my eyes and turn to look at the side of her face.

“Selfish,” She whispers, then waits for me to agree.

She isn’t wrong. But she isn’t right, either.

“You want to be the one to leave,” I say, “Because everything else leaves you first.”

Her lip twitches upwards.

“And because you’re afraid,” I pull us back, out of the abyss, into this. “You still haven’t told him about what you saw. Why? You talked about the Qun and the heart-sickness and everything else - why not this? Why are you so afraid? He won’t take him from you. He won’t try.”

“I have been afraid for so long, Cole,” She finally says, “Even before this, there was always this constant fear. And now - the Inquisition, the demons, Adamant, all of it - it has been one long never ending stretch of _fear_ for what happens next, for what is happening. And terror for what I’ve already done. I didn’t think it could get worse. I did not think it would get this bad. This awful. This threatening. Can I survive one more? Can I survive this, to top it all off?”

I turn my cheek against her shoulder and close my eyes and open my breathing to her.

We both know it isn’t a question.

“You’ve both come so far,” I whisper, “I wish you wouldn’t.”

Lavellan wouldn’t stop here. And he wouldn’t stop, here, either.

“I can’t stop,” She whispers, curling her arms around mine, “Cole, I’ve lost the ability to stop. It’s all gone terribly out of control. We’re tumbling straight off the edge of a cliff.”

“Into the endless horizon,” I reply. I open my eyes as Lavellan turns away, hands sliding over her face because she’s been drowning for so long she’s forgotten what the here and now of a breath tastes like.

I meet the Iron Bull’s eye and shake my head. He closes his eye just as Lavellan turns back, breathing just the same.

He loves her.

He will wait.

(The Iron Bull fell off that edge months ago. He’s been floating at the bottom waiting to catch her ever since.)


	44. Chapter 44

“You told that girl to get married and then take a lover,” Varric says. Lavellan doesn’t break her stride as she raises an eyebrow at him.

“Surprised or disappointed in me, Varric?” She asks.

“A little of both, I think,” He replies, “I thought you would tell her to be true or something.”

Lavellan snorts, something sharp in the way she smiles down at him, “Ah, what sort of hypocrite would I be in that case, do you think?”

Varric raises an eyebrow at her, “Out of fear of being strung up by my boots by your adoring fans, I won’t answer that question.”

Lavellan barks out a sharp burst of laughter, “Varric, if I lived my life for love and happiness, for _myself_ , I can assure you that you would have never known I even breathed.”

Her eyes speak of something very far away, someone long gone. Varric knows that feeling well.

“Somehow I doubt that, kid,” Varric replies drawing her gaze back to the here and now, “You’re too big a trouble maker for that kind of anonymity. It’s just in some people. I’m sure that if the Hawke family never left Lothering they still would’ve become a giant stick up the world’s ass.”

“Rude,” Lavellan snorts, “Those are my childhood heroes you’re talking about Varric. If anything that family would be a _Morningstar_ up the ass. Try not to sell them short.”

“And they say I have such a way with words, ever consider writing? I’d probably be out of a job. Might even knock me off the best sellers.”

“But if I did that, where would Cassandra get her stories from? In any case, oral tradition is more my field,” Lavellan flashes a light smile at him. “Go ahead and ask, Varric, I know you want to.”

“Alright, I’ll bite since you’re so good at seeing straight through my bullshit,” Varric pauses as they both walk into a more secluded area. They lost Sera and Vivienne ages ago. “In that position, what would you have done?”

“You mean, if Josephine had come up to me and said,” Lavellan’s imitation of Josephine is uncanny, “ _Lady Inquisitor_ , of these three men you must choose one of them to be your future lord and husband. Circumstances say that we must present them to you and of the three you have to pick one. This is lord so and so of such and such, the Marquis of blah blah blah, and the brother of a Duchess from somewhere I’m supposed to care about.”

“Alright, so between the Lord, the Marquis and the brother, who would you pick?”

“Honestly, if I had it my way, I would pick he one who would annoy the other two most,” Lavellan says, leaning against the edge of a stone planter, and when Varric is done shaking his head over that she shrugs and continues, “But all my jests aside, I would, of course, pick the one with the most to give to the Inquisition. This is a question that has been put before me in the past several times. Different circumstances, yes, but it is one I have practice in dealing with.”

Varric doesn’t say anything because sometimes when Merrill is drunk enough she says these things that break his heart all over again.

“And of course,” Lavellan continues, “Not a single one of them would be able to protest against the Inquisitor of Thedas. And _of course_ they wouldn’t be able to be upset if we were to - say - never consummate this hypothetical union because I imagine none of them would be willing to risk the wrath of my - which one is the one winning the rumors right now?”

“Blonde templar beast of a lover?”

“That’s the one.” Lavellan pauses then snorts, “I could have sworn that it was Blackwall leading the rumors a few days ago.”

“Yeah, until you and Cullen were seen whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears while your ass was perched next to his hand on the training yard fence while Blackwall was being his miserable self in a dark corner.”

“Ah, too true,” Lavellan laughs.

“Alright, new situation,” Varric says because he’s morbidly curious and this is how he’s going to die one day, he knows it. Lavellan nods for him to continue, “Say it isn’t complete strangers who’ll buy into the whole rumors of the Inquisitor of Thedas and her harem of lovers shit. Say they tell you that you’re going to have to pick from us.”

“Us?” Lavellan raises an eyebrow.

“Ok,” Varric chuckles, “Granted not _us_ , us. But - out of the rumors. Say it’s because you’ve built it up so much and used it to your advantage so much you’ve gotta make one of them true. Or whatever. Who would you pick?”

Lavellan gives him a deep, searching, and slightly dangerous once over.

“Master dwarf,” Lavellan’s voice has dropped low, her eyes half shut - deceptively calm and sweet -, “I do think that you’re playing where you ought not to be. Right behind an irritated hart’s hind leg.”

“I’m sure the Seeker would approve of it kicking some sense into me,” Varric says.

“Well,” Lavellan drawls after a moment of looking into his fucking soul, “Alright, Varric. We’ll play this game.Let’s talk this one out, Varric, give you lots to write about - changed names, of course.”

“If I were to write this crazy unbelievable tangle? Sure. Changed names. You want to be called Death Root?”

“Bluebell sounds pretty,” Lavellan waves a hand, “We can talk about names later. But for now let’s play these situations through. Since we’re already talking about him and he’s the current star of rumors, let’s say I choose Cullen. My military commander, he’s defended me and protected and supported me since the start. He’s fair in temper and he’s not unhandsome, he’s intelligent and something of a popular hero to certain crowds. It would be a union between a Dalish mage and a human templar. I imagine the Chantry will be weeping tears of _fire_ with how wonderfully that would look. How wondrous, he’s converted her with his - as Dorian would put it - _southern charm_.”

“How quaint.”

“Verily. It’s quite a romantic and story book tale. Alas,” Lavellan sighs, “It is not meant to be. Lord Rutherford cannot stop looking at her beyond his superior officer as well as the charge he must protect. How can he reconcile these feelings with those of his - undoubtedly - pure and noble love? Better to love from afar and to never have.”

“Andraste’s tits, we could write a fucking book together and we’d top the charts,” Varric muses.

“Exploring a different route,” Lavellan continues, making herself comfortable on the stone planter, idly picking at some grass blades, “Say I choose Dorian. The light of my life, vintage spirit of my soul, and playmate of my soul. My closest of bosom friends.”

“I think I’m drowning in how poetic this is.”

“Of course there would be a massive uproar,” Lavellan continues, “The Dalish apostate and the Tevinter altus! The entire world has gone to madness! But oh how they do adore each other. Look at them! Such passion! Such perfectly aligned spirits and temperaments! They were practically made for each other with the way they finish each other’s thoughts and tease each other into new heights.” Lavellan pretends to swoon.

“You could even be an actress,” Varric says, “I’m starting to see why you don’t write books.”

“Now our most beautiful of love stories would go down in history,” Lavellan says, “If we survived it. But this too is a tragedy because Dorian must return to his homeland, leaving me back in the south - distraught and alone. How could he risk me, his one and only love, at the hands of the Tevinter empire that he so desperately wants to save? He must make a choice for the better good, and noble man that he is, he chooses his country. We promise to unite again someday, but who knows how long that would be? In the mean time, the Inquisition faces great peril from all sides for having been united with a disgraced Tevinter noble. I don’t survive the assassination attempt.”

“For some reason,” Varric shudders, “I feel like your spy master just felt stabby right now. Alright, so two out of three down, what about mystery man number three?”

“We die,” Lavellan says, cutting through all the bullshit of the first two make believe answers. “No mystery there, we just die.”

Varric looks at the way she leans on the planter, relaxed and perfectly at peace; but her eyes are dark and her mouth is a harsh line.

“He’s the one you’d pick,” Varric says.

“Of course,” Lavellan says in that same low and deceptively shallow voice - a still pool that tricks you with how shallow it looks because you think you can see the bottom. It’s a step straight down into a slow drowning death. “Mystery man number three: secrets, spies, entire nations that would look at him and cast him down, his own nation ready to spill his blood, not a single title to his name, a reputation that precedes him with blood and murder and guts and fucks and deceptions, assassins at every turn, and a past that hollows him out every night. I would pick that man every damn time.”

“Fucking tragic,” Varric sighs, “A best seller in the making.”

Lavellan’s smile is slow and catching, “Swords and Shields but with a lot less fucking, I can tell you that much. The best hit platonic romance this age.”


	45. Chapter 45

“Erimond,” Lavellan's voice is a soft thing, a rasping, hollow thing. Not the soft of wind in grass, of fresh things from fresher earth, not even the soft of silk against wrists. No, more the soft of scales over bone dry sand, the soft of clicking feet over bleached bones.

Leliana is not familiar with this softness in her voice. It’s _intriguing_.

“Erimond,” Lavellan repeats, coming closer to the man, waving her hand and dismissing everyone else in the tent. Leliana watches, out of sight, curious. Lavellan makes no move to say anything more to the man chained and brought to his knees, the white of his robes filthy and dull. She looks down at him, dispassionate, far away and a stranger wearing the Inquisitor’s face.

She is silent and the man sneers up at her.

“ _Inquisitor_ Lavellan.”

Lavellan’s eyes are dark rings and her mouth is a dry, bloodless, cracked line. Three to four hours at most, in the Fade, and Lavellan has not yet said a single word to anyone of what has happened. Lavellan, in fact, has said more than a bare handful of words to anyone at all.

Leliana can count the phrases on one hand, _no, I’m fine, report, casualties, where is Erimond_.

“Come to gloat?” Erimond says when the silence grows under her heavy gaze, “Come to see me on my knees? You know what’s coming for you, you’ve heard the Nightmare. Seen it.”

Lavellan continues to look down at him. Leliana continues to look at her.

Erimond spews on about the losses, the failures, the mistakes, the parts of her that are owed to his master, the many ways that she is an _abomination_ \-  things that Leliana stores away to pull apart, to pull out of him, later.

“Do you have no regrets?” Lavellan interrupts him as he’s going on about how Lavellan killed the Divine by being there, how she doomed all the people she’s attempting to save. Lavellan’s voice is still that soft rasp of scale over sand, “You have destroyed good people. Their children, their mothers, their brothers and sisters, their loved ones. You’ve destroyed faith, destroyed peace, destroyed chances. For what? Your master has forsaken you, left you to me. Do you know what I am going to do you, Erimond? What they want me to do to you?”

Erimond laughs, “Torture, Inquisitor? The Herald of Andraste, stooping so low? Aren’t you supposed to be _righteous_?”

Lavellan’s lip curls up, the soft sinuous tension in the things with scales and stingers before she strikes, moving so fast Leliana almost lurches forward, out of the shadows.

Lavellan’s hand shoots out, and magic - the bright, vicious, vicarious green of the Fade lighting up the tent and following Lavellan’s gesture. Lavellan has Erimond by the throat. Leliana watches, mouth and throat dry, eyes fixed on the light as it evens out.

A perfect replica of Lavellan’s hand, the jut of her wrist bone, the indentation of the writing callous beginning to form on her finger, the slight crooked joint of her pinky, faint lines of nerves and bone and muscle all woven together - but larger, more dangerous, curled around Erimond’s throat and holding him up to look her in the eye.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Lavellan continues, voice deceptive in the dry sand it trickles, “You think you’ve made me this way? No, Erimond. I have always been this. I will always be this. You did not drag me into this darkness, I was born to it. It is a tool, Erimond, as everything else. You glut yourself in it and it became dull and useless. Use it sparingly and it becomes a sharp and hungry thing, the most precise knife.”

Leliana sinks further into the shadows to avoid being caught in the light of the Anchor.

“Erimond,” Lavellan’s soft voice catches, a hissing, dry rattle that rasps out of her chapped lips, low and promising, “You will suffer. You will die by my hand, but first you will suffer.”

“No trial?” Erimond raises an eyebrow, choking out the words as Lavellan holds him up.

“There will be a trial, Erimond,” Lavellan promises, “But it’s a long march from here to Skyhold, and those people out there will want blood. You have a ledger, Erimond. A debt of blood you can never repay no matter how long you live, no matter what is done to you, what you do in return. There is no promise to be made to buy your way out, no intelligence or secret to divulge that will wipe your slate clean, no miracle that can deliver you from me. And there is no pain I can inflict upon you that will come close to matching what you have brought upon others, but _I will t_ ry _.”_

Lavellan brings their faces closer, “You have crossed lines with many, Erimond. And it is _unfair_ of me to dictate your suffering based on my own judgement. The Inquisition is a coalition of many people under one banner. You will suffer under all of them. Every day.”

Her voice is velvet and sand, eyes black, mouth bloodless.

“First come the Dalish, I will give you this punishment. I have been chosen to do so. There is a game among my people, do you know it, Erimond? It is popular among our warring clans. _Fen’Harel’s teeth_.”

Leliana feels her own face freeze. Erimond must not know of this, because he just sneers.

Lavellan smiles, a display of teeth more than anything.

“I come for you at dawn, Erimond. You will not be sneering then. I make you this promise, though. You will not die from it. You will come close. But I will not let you. None of us will. We will hunt you through the desert and bring you back, over and over. You will not die today, nor tomorrow. Nor the day after. But you will well and truly wish you died in battle with some scrap of dignity rather than be captured like the mewling worm of a coward you are.”

Leliana slips away as Lavellan drops Erimond into the sand, moving around the tent to intercept her.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Leliana says. “My agents have their own ways of making him suffer. Of getting information from him.”

Lavellan’s eyes flick to Leliana, unsurprised.

“I don’t need your help to hang myself,” Lavellan replies. Leliana’s mind stumbles over the words, but brushes them into the growing list of things to pull apart later.

“You haven’t told anyone what you’re planning,” Leliana says. She doesn’t need to ask. If they had known - _Fen’Harel’s teeth_ \- they would have stopped her. There will be those among them who are not pleased. Not by a long shot.

Lavellan plans for a long and drawn out _game_.

It will not do her any favors. She’s not wrong in that it will make many people happy. But still -

“We are meant for brighter things, are we not?” Leliana asks, “Have you not had me spare my blade?”

“I have not told anyone anything,” Lavellan says, “Nor do I particularly care about their opinions about it.”

She turns to Lelania, “Will you stop me?”

“No, Inquisitor,” Leland replies. “I don’t think you’d let me.”

Lavellan smiles, a slithering thing.

“Does he know?” The smile sharpens.

“I haven’t spoken to him,” Lavellan says, “And you know that.”

“He would do it for you, if you asked,” Leliana points out. “And no one would think twice.”

“But I don’t want him to do it for me,” Lavellan replies. “And I do want everyone to think twice. Thrice. As many times as they need, as long and as hard as they can. I am not the Herald of Andraste, Leliana. And we all know it, now, for sure. I am not some shining beacon of goodness. I said I would do this for all of us, but I never said I’d do it _nicely_.”

“You also said that the Inquisition had to lead the way.”

“If it becomes necessary for me to break someone’s hands so they stop choking themselves I’ll do it,” Lavellan replies, “If it will get these people to start moving forward and stop arguing among themselves like children I’ll hook them in the mouths like fish and drag them behind me. Not once have I promised to be gentle, Leliana. Or kind.”

“But you are those things Lavellan,” Leliana says.

“Only when it pleases me to be so,” Lavellan replies, “As it pleases _you_ to be those things when you like.” Lavellan laughs, “Did you honestly think I was always sunlight and gardens, Leliana?”

“I wanted to believe,” Leliana admits. “Is that why you hold it up?”

“How selfless I must be in your eyes,” Lavellan replies, examining her. “How vulnerable. Sometimes it is, Leliana. And sometimes it’s because I truly feel it.”

“And what do you feel now, Inquisitor?”

“Tired,” Lavellan replies, and starts walking towards the Iron Bull’s tent, “And raw.”

“And what will this accomplish?” Leliana says towards Lavellan’s retreating back, “I’m not casting stones, Lavellan. I do honestly want to know.”

“Being slightly less raw,” Lavellan replies, “Ask your people what you’d like done to him. You get day two of the march back to Skyhold.”


	46. Chapter 46

The sound of laughter drifted up from outside the window. Lavellan isn’t sure if she feels safe - finally - or terribly alone.

She is used to sounds, she is used to being surrounded in them, usually even being the focus of them. But that changed. Things change, people change, countries change - _she changed_.

Lavellan is used to sounds. Sounds are good. The sounds of making bread, frying it on hot stone and the sounds of stones grinding together to make medicine. The sounds of the halla  and their young with their tenders. The sounds of the aravel’s wheels and sails as the crafters check their joints and axels, the smooth glide of the billowing cloth and rope. The hahren speaking and teaching, the songs and poems tossed between people. The sounds of her own breathing at night as she lay in the grass and tried to catch fire flies between her fingers and in between small barriers, the sound of fire.

The sounds of strange feet, the sounds of heavy armor, the sounds of horses instead of halla. The warning sounds of expensive metal and voices that were not Lavellan.

The lack of sound as everyone slips into the darkness, eyes like fireflies as they blink in and out of existence.

The sounds of Skyhold - people at work, the endless, endless amount of chores and repairs that never seem to finish. The sounds of wagons and caravans, a train that has never stopped at their doors, wood creaking over wood and stone. The sounds of fluttering skirts and cloaks, whispers and gossip. Dogs barking, the rustle of wings in the aviary. Laughter and dinner plates and cups and cutlery. Soldiers training, bards strumming their lutes.

Underneath it, the moan of the dying, the hurt, the mourning. The quiet exchanges of patrols with their eyes towards the world beyond their walls. The chanting of the Chantry sisters, the quieter prayers held in secret in the gardens with her own people. The sounds of arrows and knives hitting targets.

But never, ever, really, the sound of just her own voice, her own heart.

There are sounds from outside the inn window, the inn keeper had not wanted to give Lavellan the room on the second floor. Knife ear. Run away. And cripple.

But Lavellan had money, and Lavellan had _Cole_.

“It was a bad thing,” Cole says, cross legged and loose on the floor just shy of the window’s light. “But she was being worse to you. I couldn’t find a reason why.”

“There doesn’t have to be a reason for hatred,” Lavellan says, “Just like there doesn’t have to be a reason for violence or destruction.”

“But there is always a reason for love,” Cole replies.

“Yes,” Lavellan answers, “Because love is infinitely easier than hate.”

Cole’s mouth furrows, confused because that goes against everything Lavellan has ever said and done.

But it is easier to love - now. When she’s alone.

Lavellan sits against the far wall, door in the corner of one eye, window in the other, and she squeezes the tooth in her one hand; wills a scar to match it.

“He wants me to tell you that you missed it,” Cole says. “Rocky slipped on manure and landed face first into it. He was drunk. It was funny. I can’t describe it right. I don’t know why it’s funny.”

“That’s alright, Cole, thank you for telling me,” Lavellan says.

“He wants you to know that one of their dogs had pups. They have spots and flopping ears.”

She knows which dogs he means.

“You watch them in dreams, he never taught you that. It’s something you learned on your own. You never told him. He doesn’t know what you can do.”

“No,” Lavellan smiles, “He doesn’t know.”

He doesn’t know what Lavellan kept, how much she absorbed. He doesn’t know that she lost the Anchor, but she kept everything else. The dreams, the understanding, the _knowledge_. All of it poured through the Anchor in those last moments, the overload into -

She wonders if it was two ways. Did Solas feel it? Did Solas hear the sounds of her memories? The pain of the vallaslin? Did he hear the sounds she made when she received the comb? Did he hear the sounds she made when she wept into the Iron Bull’s chest, or when she laughed into his neck? The sound their skin makes when she slides her hand into his or the sound of his breathing, deep and steady and vast? Did Solas hear the sound of his mouth on her skin when he laughed, when he cried? Did Solas hear the sound she made when he fell on her, both of them laughing and all the air left her lungs?

What passed between? Who became who?

Lavellan sifts through memories and sensations, knows what is hers, senses what could have been hers. She wades through sounds and just out of reach she remembers the taste of _elvhenan_. She remembers a different man.

In the end, did Solas understand how much she loved all of them? How much she _loved him?_

She shoots a sharp glance at Cole.

Cole remains silent.

Lavellan closes her eyes.

It is painful to be with the Iron Bull at all times. She loves him, but there is pain there. Between them. He suffers for not protecting her. She suffers for protecting him. All of them.

When she is with him it is good, until her bones start to scream for elsewhere. For Dorian, out of reach in Tevinter, Solas gone to mad dreams, Varric in his stone walls, Blackwall wandering, Leliana in the shadows, Josephine in Antivan gold - all of them.

Lavellan sits against the wall, the sounds from the window not her sounds, not the sounds of Skyhold or Lavellan, not the sounds that she wants, but they remind her that it’s possible.

The sounds are still here. The sounds are still good.

Lavellan breathes, releases the tooth to lie against her chest and lets her head hit the wooden wall.

“The city militia is coming for you,” Cole says, tilting his head towards the window. The sounds have not changed. The shemlen have no fear for their own guards.

Lavellan is unsurprised. Crippled knife ears don't have the kind of money she has.

“Chances they’ll believe my paperwork?”

“They don’t want to, they’ve already decided,” Cole says.

Inquisitor Lavellan is dead. But Leliana and Varric and Bull and Sera have provided her with enough new names and papers that she may never die.

The Inquisition goes on even if the world does not know. This is a war that the world is not ready for. A war that Lavellan is going to try and prevent from ever reaching the surface, even if she dies - for real - trying.

Lavellan rises to her feet and Cole is at her side instantly, he slips coins into her palm.

She blinks, surprised.

“She shouldn’t get to keep it,” Cole says.  “Is what the Iron Bull would say.”

Lavellan slides the coin into her pocket, “You are correct.”

She slings her bag back over her shoulder, tired, and prepares to slide out the window, onto the rooftops. She can probably find a Jenny here.

The sounds of the streets swim up to her. No longer alone. Not Skyhold.

Lavellan disappears.


	47. Chapter 47

A single bag.

That is what a life amounts to. That is what life should have been, should have been calculated to.

One bag of necessities that absolutely couldn’t be lost.

Ellana looks around the room she has grown to understand, want, desire, as her own. This is not one bag. This is, possibly, a cart or a wagon. Maybe even two.

She closes her eyes and her heart stings for the last golden second of the dawn over the Frostbacks, the sound of people -  _her people, the only people she has left_  - coming awake or going to bed from a long night shift - in the courtyards below, the always present thrum of the air of the mountains themselves.

When she was younger, when she was still just the First of Clan Lavellan - in training, not ready to become a Keeper in her own right for several years, decades even - she remembers the moving. Always moving. She remembers being happy and content with so little.

Everything you could want or need or love, in a single bag.

And the rest kept safe in the vault of memories, in your head, where they can always be yours. Where no Templar in armor, where no soldier with a sword, where no slaver with chains, where no man or woman with lecherous hands, where no one could take it from you.

And now here she is and the Templars and armies and Tevinter wars and betraying hands have stolen the past half decade out from under her.

Her heart closes.

Her eyes open.

“I will come back for you,” Ellana says to the stones, to the windows, to the ceiling and the sky. “I surrender nothing to anyone. I  _will come back for you_.”

Morrigan once said that Skyhold loved her, that she could tell that Ellana had done right by the place, and that the land in turn grew to love her back. The land, the castle, would hold. The land, the castle, would wait.

The land, the castle, will stand for her.

She just has to survive to come back to it.

“Are you ready?”

Ellana turns and sees Bull standing at the stairs, hand on the railing.

“No,” Ellana says, turning and picking up her bag -

Part of a life. A shadow of a life. A ghost of a life.

A reason to return.

“Has Dorian sent word?” Ellana asks.

Bull holds out his hand and Ellana takes it after passing him her bag as they slowly walk down the stairs, away from their life, away from home.

“He’s got our papers in order, he has a guy who’ll meet us at port and bring us to a safe house,” Bull says. “Leliana has a trail of spies ready for us and we’ve got people on the ground. Our advanced fleet has already made land. Montilyet has converted most of the Inquisition’s assets into untraceable funds and deposited into trusted accounts. She’s also wired a sum over to Dorian who’s placed it under his name as well as a few of his allies. Things should be ready for you once we hit land.”

“Good,” Ellana says, “Who’s left?”

“Just you, me, and the Chargers. Everyone else has already been located and briefed,” Bull says. “Just got a message from Dennet. All of your mounts have successfully been relocated to Fereldan’s Hinterlands. They’re mostly running wild but they’r keeping to a small ground. And we have some people we’ve moved to the area for the time being who’re looking out for them.”

Ellana squeezes his hand, “It’s not too late.”

“For what?” Bull asks, “To cut loose and run?”

“You, me, the Chargers, and adventure somewhere where no-one knows our names,” Ellana suggests. She’s only half joking about it.

Bull’s hand is so warm and firm and sure as they finish their descent down the stairs, looking at the door that would lead to an empty throne room, an empty main hall, a deserted fortress.

“Half of your family is already out there,” Bull says, “And you’d never forgive yourself if you left them to it.”

-

“I miss moments more like this than anything,” Ellana says. Cole’s fingers are bony and cold, curled through hers.

“In dreams you can have everything,” Cole murmurs “Even the things you never had.”

Ellana smiles and shushes him gently, “We did have this, though, Cole. We had this. Not specifically this scene, but we had this. We will have it again, someday. I swear it.”

This.

The scene.

Skyhold’s great hall, with its long wooden tables filled with breakfast. Platters of eggs, rashers of bacon, huge plates filled with still warm from the oven bread. Bowls of beans and links of sausages. Wooden blocks of cheese and great cool pitchers of milk and cream and platters with butter and jars of honey and preserves. Pots of tea and bowls of sugar and the sounds of clinking spoons and forks and people talking.

Ellana smiles, looking around those tables at faces familiar and peaceful.

The sun shines through the window at the end of the hall and the great wide and tall doors that open out into the courtyard where more people move and work and talk and Skyhold is a hive of activity.

Ellana can hear the sound of carts on the bridge, the sound of people marching on stone, the sounds of people training, and the sounds of it all echo and mix and mingle in the air.

Did this exact scene ever play out in real life with each of these faces exactly where they are now? Perhaps not.

But did something similar enough happen?

All the time.

Ellana pulls her hand from Cole’s and walks to the empty space that is not in the middle of the dance of people, but just  _part of it_ , and takes her place next to the Iron Bull and Josephine, slipping into the sounds and the living and the laughing and the talking like she was always there.

She is always there, in her heart.

“It is a dream,” Cole says, “He was obsessed with dreams. After everything ended they were all he had.”

Ellana puts her hand on the Iron Bull’s arm and in this dream she has two hands still so with the other one she can take the platter of eggs he hands her.

“And after a while he thought, why couldn’t those dreams be real?”

Ellana hands Josephine the eggs, one hand still on the Iron Bull’s arm, she turns to Cole and raises a finger to her lips.

The door to the rotunda opens and Solas walks in, taking a seat by Cassandra and accepting a bowl of porridge that Skinner hands him.

Bull’s arm moves from underneath her hand and slides over her shoulders, loose as she leans into his side.

“Because my dreams are more powerful than his,” Ellana says, “And in dangerous times these are dangerous words and I am the dangerous person he chose to try and shape me into. And I will do the dangerous things he wanted me to learn to protect these people from the dreams of someone like him, who has never once wanted a world for the living instead of a world for the dead.”


	48. Chapter 48

Most of their commentating spectators have gone off by now, so it’s just the two of them out here while everyone else does clean up or damage control inside. And still, the music plays and people dance and the party goes on. He has to hand it to the Orlesians, they don’t give up on the so-called niceties so easily.

Even with multiple murders still cooling off on their stolen tiled floors.

The two of them glide around, outside right where Florianne tried to kill them. It’s the most they’ve seen of each other all night, honestly. Or at least, it’s the most Bull’s seen  _her_  the entire night and he’d rather be out here than inside again.

He’d also rather be out of this stupid uniform but he doesn’t think that they’re in such good graces with the locals that he can start taking off his clothes without causing trouble.

Bull’s not the best dancer, but he knows the basics and it’s not like anyone is going to be judging his technique in Orlesian ballroom dancing. He figures that the fact that he actually knows  _something_  is enough to get him by. Disguises and personas at work.

Lavellan’s peaceful expression is suddenly troubled when the the song they’re dancing to transitions into something else.

“What?”

“I - I only learned to lead for this dance,” She says, looking disappointed and sheepish. Bull shrugs and moves his hands, nudging Lavellan’s arms so she moves hers too.

“Then lead,” Bull answers. “You practiced, right?”

Lavellan smiles up at him, her arms and hands gaining confidence as she adjusts her hold on him and pulls him into the waltz, humming under her breath.

Bull follows, carful to match his longer, larger, legs with her crisp movements. He has always been of the personal opinion that a woman acting with calm and assured confidence is the most attractive and alluring seduction in the world. He’s always been a sucker for it, at least. It’s entirely possible that this is the Qun’s training talking in his head - years of following direction from tamassarans - or if it’s a personal preference.

But there is something undeniable about power being attractive and Bull is comfortable enough with himself to know that he’ll be a sucker for it either way.

Lavellan’s thumb draws a line over the back of his gloved hand, when he glances down at her she smirks.

“So you liked the perfume did you?”

Bull groans, “Were you waiting on that one the entire night?”

Lavellan’s laugh is a wicked and wonderful thing to hear after all this tension. Even at his own expense.

“It’s something that kept me focused, yes. If I died I’d never be able to ask you,” Lavellan muses. “It’s the little things that keep you going, I suppose.”

“The Chargers ripped me enough for it,” Bull says, “Yes, I like it. It was surprising. You surprised me.”

Bull presses closer to her and lowers his voice for her, “I am not surprised often,  _Ellana_.”

He hears her catch of breath as they spin apart and Bull gives her his own wicked laugh and his own wonderful smile and Ellana suddenly reverses positions, spinning into his arms just before he can spin into hers.

She tilts her head back to look up at him, “Should I do it more often, then?”

“I’m sure you’ll rise to the challenge,” Bull says, making no move to continue the dance. Lavellan doesn’t either.

She just leans against him, their hands still connected, and replies, “And I’m sure you’ll also return the favor.”

-

“You must be mad, coming here like this,” Bull says, looking around the cell.

Lavellan paces like a wild cat, an animal from the jungle, as she glares into the cell furthest from the doors. It’s the most dangerous and precarious cell in that it’s right next to the edge of a the broken flooring and one good crack would probably send the entire cell falling off into the plunging valley of the Frostbacks.

Before now they’d never used the cell. It was too dangerous and unsafe.

No one particularly cares if anything happens to the current occupant of that cell.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to talk to him.”

“And I’m not,” Lavellan snaps.

Bull doesn’t recoil when he sees the Anchor flashing in between the clenching and unclenching of her fist. He’s just - it’s never been that active, or  _reactive_  before. At least, not that he’s seen. But then again - he’s rarely seen her so agitated. So infuriated. Enraged.

“Let’s go,” Bull says, leaning in the doorway to the stairs. The guards had been dismissed to watch the other side of the stairs. It’s just the two of them, and the prisoners.

Lavellan pauses her pacing, pointing at the cell, “That man.”

She stops, and Bull can see her jaw trying to form words around her rage and failing as her hand curls back into a fist and she returns to pacing.

“Countless lives lost,” She finally manages to get out, “Thousands of years of knowledge gone. The sanctity of my race, my culture, again sacrificed. For what?  _For who_?”

She snarls, and a curl of vivid green trails behind her hand as she gestures sharply in the air - “For  _Tevinter._  For  _Templars_. For  _a human empire once again_. How  _many times_? And me? No better!”

She turns to Bull, “I let them in! And I almost - I almost let Morrigan take it. Everyone said to me,  _let Morrigan take it, better her than you_. Better  _her_? What is better about her that makes her worthy of  _my own legacy_? What is it about this  _shemlen_  who walks in here and talks to me like I’m some unmarked brat who hasn’t even learned the names of the gods?  _Hm_? Tell me.  _Tell me_  why I, first of my clan, am  _unworthy_  of Mythal’s guidance?”

Bull doesn’t say anything because that isn’t the point here.

“So _I_  am the one who earned the favor of Mythal,  _I_  am the one who took that boon, and now everyone is upset,” Lavellan throws her arms out, letting them fall restlessly, smacking against her legs, “Because I’m not  _good_  enough? Too  _fucking bad_. It’s  _mine_. I don’t  _care_  if I’m not smart enough. Not clever enough. Not  _wise_  enough. I don’t give a fucking  _shit_. She’s  _my goddess. That Temple was made by my people_. The keepers of Mythal were  _elves_. Like  _me_. And I won’t - I can’t -  _how could I live with myself_ , Bull? How could they expect me to live with myself? Centuries of guarding what little we have left and - and - “

Her voice cracks -

“And I brought ruin to what was possibly the last beautiful thing we could turn to, this vestige of knowledge that we could have had for ourselves -  _finally for ourselves -_ and I brought  _armies_  to it and they expected me to  _turn over_  the last remaining gift there?”

Bull loosens his stance and walks forward, stopping a few paces away.

“Yes,” He answers, “They did.”

“I  _can’t_ ,” Lavellan says, “I couldn’t.”

“And you  _didn’t_.”

She closes the space between them, head tilting forward as she bows her head towards him, resting her head on his chest.

“I am angry,” She exhales.

“I know,” Bull rests his hand on the nape of her neck, running his thumb over the fine bones that jut out there. “Be angry. Be loud about being angry. It’s the only way to survive, sometimes. It’s okay.”

“I don’t enjoy being angry.”

“But you’d enjoy it a lot more than being disappointed. I promise you.”

“That is true,” Lavellan reaches back and puts her hand over his. “You disagree with me as well. About my choice.”

“Not in the parts you’re talking about,” Bull says. Those he understands perfectly well. “But you already know why.”

“I do. I’m not sorry.”

“And I’m not asking you to be.”


End file.
